Ringworld/The Ringworld Engineers (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Larry Niven
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Novels
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—future history
- Time of Work: 2850 and 2873
- Setting: Earth and the Ringworld
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Folkloric or magical people, Future, Other worlds, Earth, Exploration or explorers, Aliens, space, Vampires, Mutations or mutants
- Locales: Earth, Fictional planets
The Plot
The Ringworld novels take place in Larry Niven’s own particular future history, Known Space. Like Isaac Asimov’s and Robert Heinlein’s future histories, it has been charted and time-lined, but unlike theirs, it includes a variety of sentient alien species and several million years of prehistory. According to this schema, humanity arose not simply because of evolution on Earth but also because the attempt of a race known as the Pak to establish a colony on Earth went awry. Human beings are the mutated remnants of the Pak breeder stage, which could not metamorphose...
[The entire page is 1485 words long]
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