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Ringworld Discussion

"I am not genius, but I have read Ringworld and all of Larry Niven's Known Space books and understood them. Apparently you, or whoever did (or did not) read the book and told you about it, did not understand it. You mention the books deeper themes, and I quote,"-acceptance and understanding despite vast differences of culture, background and species; the value of suffering and difficulties; the importance of wholesness in character development."

Well, evidently you missed the "deep theme" all together. The "deep theme" in Ringworld pertained to the Puppeteer's implementation of the birthright lotteries to produce a "lucky" human. Teela Brown was one of those "lucky" humans. Her "luck" conducted the entire excursion to the Ringworld, because her going to the Ringworld was in her own best interests. It turned out that she went to the Ringworld to meet the man she was predestined to love, under the pretense of being Luis Wu's companion.

You mention a recurrent theme of over-population. This is not entirely true, you mention it in the human context which is not how it is presented in the book. In the book over-population is an issue with the Puppeteers, not the humans. The Puppeteers were running out of room on the Kemplerer Rosette of worlds that they occupy. They moved this set of moonless planets (read Larry Niven's book called The Crashlander, a book of short stories about Beowulf Schafer, for the story on why they don't have any moons) out of human space towards the Greater Magellanic Cloud. This was after Beowulf Schafer traveled to the center of the Galaxy and back in the Longshot, long before it ever went to the Ringworld. Beowulf discovered that the Galaxy's core was reaching critical mass, and would explode. Imagine a galactic sized supernova. The Puppeteers were interested in the Ringworld, not only for it's size (6 X 10 to the 6th square miles) But because scrith, the material the Ringworld is made of, would halt 40% of the neutrino burst that would be created when the Galactic core goes nova. The Puppeteers main priority was the protection of their species. They were renowned for their cowardice, a cowardice that was only a physcological evolution of the simple act of turning their back on an enemy, the true nature of that reaction was so they could free up their hind foot for battle.

I quite agree with you on your example of humor. I have to say though I think your example of optimism, "I can help your world,Luis. Your people know little about sex.", was humorous as well, considering it was said by a Kzin, who's female counterparts are inanimate mounds of tissue.

I'm sorry if my letter was construed as being nasty, but I just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings about Ringworld." - Ian Smart 12/20/97"

You've obviously read and thought about Ringworld books much more than I have. Thanks for the lesson - you've inspired me to read more of the series. - Steve 1/4/97

Please email comments to stroy@jade-mtn.com.

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