What do You think about The Ringworld Engineers (1997)?
The Ringworld series continues with this book, The Ringworld Engineers. Some of the same characters appear from the first novel, most prominently, Louie Wu and Chmeee. Louie and Chmeee are kidnapped by a Puppeteer and taken back to the Ringworld to search for an artifact that will help the Puppeteer to his political aspirations. I thought this book was a little confusing and had too much rishathra (sexual practice outside one's own species), which had nothing to do with furthering the story. I do like the characters and I do like the attempt to explain the Ringworld's potential real existence through science, so I find that very interesting, but I was hoping for a better story. There are so much potential with Ringworld and this story fell short for me.
—Karen
This one of the very few occasions that I decided to reread a book. Not because I fondly remembered – rather worryingly it was because I had the next two sequels in my to be read pile and I wanted to give them a go but I could not remember a single word of this book. That really should have been an omen.Ringworld was one of the first SF books I ever read and one could hardly have picked a better book for the sheer scale of the central idea and the sense of wonder that flooded your mind. I grew to love much of Niven's stuff and almost all The Known Space stories are still treasured possessions.This return to the Ringworld finds the structure broken and our sense of wonder waning. Niven fails to bring alive even a small segment of the massive literary playground he has created. We do indeed sort of meet a Ringworld engineer whose motivations and thought processes are key to the resolution of the story. These motivations are believable but are far from convincing. Yes their thought processes are going to be very alien but these are so conservative and restrictive that it’s a wonder they managed to get off their homeward never mind build the Ringworld.Ringworld deserves its place as one the top ten SF books of all time. This sequel is an enjoyable read but in comparison to the Ringworld it is a mere Shadow Square – an impressive structure but far less bright and interesting.
—Peter Dunn
And so we return to Ringworld, with Louis Wu and Speaker-to-Animals, who have both undergone character development in the interim. We get a new Pearson’s puppeteer, though I much prefer Nessus, who had some dynamism. Niven is now free to present major obstacles in the Ringworld, and he does so within a typical, though exciting, plot. The stakes are high, no less than the fate of the Ringworld itself and its trillions of inhabitants. We get up close and personal with many of those inhabitants, to which Niven spices them up by infusing elements of evolutionary biology. We get more questions answered, especially about the designers of the Ringworld and what they represent to the galaxy as a whole. We get big problems to solve, and suspense as to whether they will be solved without sacrifice.Ringworld Engineers takes a different tone than the original. In place of exploration and wonderment is a formula consisting of protagonists working together to overcome adversities. That should be expected in a sequel, when the initial amazement wears off, and we want Louis and Speaker to do more than just uncover fascinating phenomena. Niven does a good job in offering interesting puzzles to solve and new players to help or hinder our old friends. Character development actually exists in Engineers, as well as character twists that some might not see coming.Ringworld was an unbelievable ride into exploring the unknown in a contained, but exponentially massive environment. Ringworld Engineers does not have much of that facet, but it prevails as a strong sequel that moves towards typical space opera fare. Note to Niven: Sex prose does not automatically make your story edgy and adult. Stop inserting it haphazardly, you didn't need it.
—Malcolm Little
