"Ringworld" by Larry Niven; 6/10 [H]

Meh.

Yeah I said it.  Hey, this book has a great concept, one that physicists will likely still be discussing long after you and I are dead, and for that it deserves a great deal of praise. "Ringworld" also created the "Known Space" universe, which Larry Niven would revisit for seven more novels after this first one won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (you get extra cred for winning both). 

The problem, to me, is that it is never particularly interesting in its own terms.  The book's construction frequently feels whimsical, and the only character who interested me in the slightest was usually the closest thing to a villain that you could find.  The original concept was an interesting one, but I just think Larry Niven could have done a whole lot more with it than he did in this book. Maybe he does in some of the others, I don't know. But I finished this book still wondering where the beef was.

Niven, so you'll know if you haven't read him, is a physicist by training, like Arthur C. Clarke, and like the golden great he endows his novels with a great deal of attempted accuracy in concept and in realization of plot.  The term for this is "hard sci-fi." It usually doesn't particularly jazz me, but it can be a nice change-up sometimes from the particularly fanciful Asimov/Bradbury axis. 

Anyways, the SF historians have put this one in the firmament, but I honestly think that while it rates a 6, so it is worth a look and may open some eyes on occasion, it isn't required reading. To me, overrated.