Larry Niven may be America's greatest living hard-SF writer. Much of his SF belongs to his famous future history, the Tales of Known Space. His preeminent creation is the Ringworld: an immense, artificial, ring-shaped planet that circles a Known Space star. Possibly SF's greatest feat of world-building, the Ringworld is featured in four novels: the Hugo and Nebula Award winner Ringworld (1970); The Ringworld Engineers (1980); The Ringworld Throne (1996); and Ringworld's Children (2004).

Ringworld's Children returns series protagonist Louis Wu to the titular world. Louis and his friend The Hindmost, an alien of the Pierson's puppeteer race, are prisoners of the Ghoul protector Tunesmith, a Ringworld native, who is deliberately provoking the warships that surround his world. All the star-faring races of Known Space have sent warships to the Ringworld, and they are already at the brink of war. If fighting breaks out, the near-indestructible Ringworld will be destroyed: dissolved by antimatter weapons.

The Ringworld series is so complex and ambitious that Ringworld's Children opens with a glossary and a cast of characters, inclusions that even many Known Space fans will need. Newcomers to Niven's artificial planet should start with Ringworld. --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
Ringworld (1970) and its many offspring (The Ringworld Engineers, etc.) are an SF institution. Unfortunately, bestseller Niven's first Ringworld installment in 10 years combines the worst qualities of hard SF (i.e., cardboard characters, a plot propelled primarily by technological infodumps) with the least appealing characteristics of sequelitis (i.e., a story no one can follow without fanatic dedication to earlier books). In the year 2893, 67 Ringworld days after Louis Wu, badly wounded in battle with "the Vampire protector, Bram," stepped into a healing autodoc, our hero awakens with a restored, younger body. The passive Louis and several alien companions soon get caught up in a war involving weaponery that could destroy Ringworld. The novel finally comes into its own about midway through, while a glossary and a cast of characters will help orient those new to the series. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
After a decade, Niven returns to that marvel of engineering, a world consisting of an enormous ring circling a star, inhabited by all sorts of interesting species. Louis Wu, survivor of the first human expedition to Ringworld, is at the mercy of Tunesmith, the ghoul protector, who struggles to defend Ringworld from all comers. Ships of many races continue the Fringe War, and Wu, with Acolyte, a protector of a "hanging people" species, and mysterious but lucky Wembleth take it upon themselves to save Ringworld from overzealous outsiders. It takes Wu a while to piece together the present situation, for he has just spent some time in the autodoc after a battle with Bram, but he and his companions end up in the realm of an especially old protector, Proserpina, who is imprisoned in the Isolation Zone. Thereafter, the protectors' plan to save Ringworld and end the Fringe War takes shape. Action and clever world building should captivate newcomers to Ringworld, while returners will appreciate picking up loose ends from previous Ringworld volumes. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Ringworld's Children is the most exciting Ringworld novel since the first, whicch makes it one of Larry Niven's best ever."


Book Description
Welcome to a world like no other.

The Ringworld: a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band 3 million times the surface area of Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of which are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe.

Explorere Louis Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threaten to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now, the future of Ringworld lies in the actions of its children: Tunesmith, the Ghould protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous in order to save Ringworld's population, and the stability of Ringworld itself.

Blending awe-inspiring science with non-stop action and fun, Ringworld's Children, the fourth installment of the multiple award-winning saga, is the perfect introduction for readers new to this New York Times bestselling series, and long-time fans of Larry Niven's Ringworld.



About the Author
Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf's Children, co-authored with Jeery Pournelle and Steven Barnes was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The Ringworld: a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band three million times the surface of the Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of whom are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe." Explorer Louise Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threaten to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now the future of Ringworld lies in its children: Tunesmith, the Ghoul protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous game in order to save Ringworld's population - and the stability of Ringworld itself.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Ringworld (1970) and its many offspring (The Ringworld Engineers, etc.) are an SF institution. Unfortunately, bestseller Niven's first Ringworld installment in 10 years combines the worst qualities of hard SF (i.e., cardboard characters, a plot propelled primarily by technological infodumps) with the least appealing characteristics of sequelitis (i.e., a story no one can follow without fanatic dedication to earlier books). In the year 2893, 67 Ringworld days after Louis Wu, badly wounded in battle with "the Vampire protector, Bram," stepped into a healing autodoc, our hero awakens with a restored, younger body. The passive Louis and several alien companions soon get caught up in a war involving weaponery that could destroy Ringworld. The novel finally comes into its own about midway through, while a glossary and a cast of characters will help orient those new to the series. Agent, Eleanor Wood of the Spectrum Literary Agency. (July) Forecast: The high anticipation of the first Ringworld novel in a decade, backed by blurbs from Orson Scott Card, Steven Barnes and Fred Saberhagen, should help launch this onto many bestseller lists. Niven has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Ringworld, an artificially engineered realm resembling a ribbon or ring that is home to over a trillion people of wildly different species, faces threats from outsider ships from the inhabited worlds and its own aging superstructure. Newly restored in mind and body, Louis Wu, a member of the first expedition to Ringworld, joins three individuals of different species to prevent the destruction of Ringworld. After a ten-year hiatus, Niven (Ringworld; Ringworld Engineers; Ringworld Throne) returns with a tale of adventure, romance, and peril. A good choice for most sf collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews