Il trono di Ringworld. Il ciclo di Ringworld

Once upon a time, a science-fiction author wrote a novel about a Big Dumb object . It would go on to win the trifecta: the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel, not to mention become the iconic novel about Big Dumb Objects. It is now, essentially, a classic. Fans with engineering degrees from Leggi tutto

I was excited to find this book, because I hoped Niven had something new to say about the Ringworld. Well, he didn't. In fact, I almost gave up after the first hundred pages or so, because I found it so deathly dull. The first half of the book deals with a whole slew of characters, most of whom never Leggi tutto

The downhill trend of the series continues. In and of itself, it's a fairly acceptable book, but it's worse than Engineers (book 2). Action jumps around, the whole vampire hunter thing to which half the book is devoted leads essentially nowhere, a crew of 4 (which is easy to keep track of) plus no-m Leggi tutto

Everyone says this book is rubbish, and it really is. The last third is stupidly complicated - a pea and shell trick with teleporters that goes on for so long the author looses the peas and the plot. The first half is really a short story with side characters that has been stretched out to fill a nov Leggi tutto

This was a disappointment. I mean, Niven knows how to get you to turn the page, but the first part of the story is about characters I'm not really attached to, and the second part was something of a rushed train wreck. It's the opposite of over-written, it was under-written