The IBIC Guide to Books By Larry Niven

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A Letter from Larry Niven

RETURNING TO RINGWORLD

I was lucky. "There is a Tide," the original Ringworld story, began in conversation with Tom Digby and Dan Alderson, two crazy-brilliant members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. I turned our neat, simple idea into a story the next day.

The writing ran smooth as silk. Louis Wu, he just evolved on the spot. The Ringworld has a simplicity of its own: the math is that of a suspension bridge with no endpoints. The Ringworld's engineers used robust and simple technology--the Soviet space program. Everything I have written about the Ringworld since that first tale has touched on four simple, basic ideas:

One was to run a ribbon of strong material in an Earthlike orbit around a Sol-type sun, spin it for gravity, and terraform the inner surface. The second was to introduce Teela Brown, the enigmatic woman bred for luck. The third was to offer the notion that every symptom of aging in a human being is an aborted sign of a juvenile's attempt to reach its adult form: to become the Protector. The fourth was to depict the human urge to play God.

So I set out to bring a gathering of humans and aliens to the Ringworld, and Louis Wu was there waiting for me.

In RINGWORLD, the major characters all took the role of gods at some time. Teela Brown's luck shaped events. The alien puppeteer--Nessus--had, in turn, been involved in shaping Teela Brown. Even the feral Kzin known as Speaker-to-Animals was a war god during the trip back, and enjoyed the experience immensely.

In PROTECTOR, the Protectors of humankind were Phasthpok, Brennan, and Truesdale. Each, in turn, learned that to know all the answers was to be chained.

In THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS, the Hindmost's administration went so far as to meddle with the very nature of human and kzinti. Deposed by his followers, the Hindmost kidnapped Louis and Speaker-to-Animals (renamed Chmeee) and shaped a dangerous expedition.

Then Louis Wu boiled an ocean. That kind of hubris can be habit forming: Louis made a promise only a god can make. Then he enlisted the rest of his crew so that he could keep that promise, and to stave off the destruction of the Ringworld itself. Teela became the Fisher King. At the end, Louis and the kzin sailed off into the Western Isles...where Chmeee would invade and rule the Map of Earth.

And THE RINGWORLD THRONE is largely about establishing who will protect the Ringworld. It is very natural for a Protector to play god, no matter what his species. (For that matter, the same applies to science fiction writers.)


Since THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS appeared, eleven years have passed in Tarzana, California (my home), and on the Ringworld itself. As THE RINGWORLD THRONE opens, the Ringworld is in the hands of five vampires turned Protector. But there are unseen Ghouls all about. The Empire encloses everything beneath the Arch.

There's always the sense of an uber-Ghoul somewhere offstage. Seemingly phantom, he's quite real, but he was murdered in 1200 A.D. He had played god, too: he was the Ringworld's only Protector for nearly twenty thousand years. But that doesn't necessarily impress Louis Wu, to whom Ghouls are just hominids--worthy of respect, but as equals. That goes even for the Protectors...though they may be faster and stronger and more clever than breeder-stage human beings. One would avoid fighting a Protector if one could negotiate. But Protectors have their limits. They can be manipulated; they're predictable.

Reds and City Builders who revere the Protectors will find this attitude startling. When they encounter it, they may judge Louis Wu himself to be a god, or simply consider him mad...

If you are encountering Ringworld for the first time, don't let your first glimpse weird you out. You get used to the place fast. Sure, it's big: three million times the surface area of the Earth. Sure, it takes near-magical technology: the tensile strength of the scrith floor is about that of an atomic nucleus. Sure, the perspectives are strange. But you'll get to know it--even come to love it.

For me, writing THE RINGWORLD THRONE was like coming home.

--Copyright 1996 by Larry Niven


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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996

In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life and thinking.

  • When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on the classic. What a great movie it would make!
  • The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy. I've read a number of translations over the years, but my favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO; PURGATORY; PARADISE). The notes are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
  • I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY, which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
  • Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent acquisition, the very handsome NIV STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black and brown are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding Scripture.

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