WIJFR: The Ringworld Throne

closeHey, just so you know ... this post is now about 13 years and 5 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

The human, Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee . . . legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. Something is going on with the Protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld. Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda–if anyone dares approach them to learn. Each race on the Ringworld has always had its own Protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a Protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld Throne?

It’s been almost two years since I read “The Ringworld Engineers” and back then I wrote here that I probably wouldn’t bother with the remaining two books in the series. I probably should have listened to myself, but I just finished “The Ringworld Throne” … the first e-book I’ve read entirely on my new iPad.

About 11 years have passed since the Ringworld’s orbit was stabilized at the end of “Engineers.” Since then,  Louis Wu and his companions left the Map of Mars on the mile-long ship, the Hidden Patriarch, dropped off the Kzin, Chmeee, at the Map of Earth and continued across the Great Ocean back to land. Louis has since been wandering across the Ringworld surface, encountering and interacting with other species. Mysteriously, the legend of “Louis Wu of the Ball People who boiled a sea” has spread across the land and precedes him.

While half of the story covers Louis, Chmeee’s son Acolyte, the Hindmost, and their dealings with the vampire Protector Bram in the Repair Center, the other half follows a varied group of Ringworld hominids (grass giants, red herders, machine people, ghouls, etc.) as they travel to destroy a huge nest of vampires beneath a floating city. Eventually the two storylines merge for the climax of the novel as the fate of all of the hominid races under “the Arch” is determined by warring Protectors.

While the idea, scale, and technical details of the Ringworld are still fascinating and yet hard to grasp, this third story fell a little flat for me. Maybe it was too much rishathra and not enough science fiction action/adventure. Maybe it was too hard to follow since I had been away from the Ringworld for almost two years. At any rate, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’m not going to bother with “Ringworld’s Children” but who knows what will happen in two more years …

Next on my list, some classic SF: Asimov’s Foundation series.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *