The Ringworld Throne

This is the third book in Niven's occasional Ringworld series.The odd thing about this book is that the first half of it is taken up with preliminaries and irrelevancies; if you want to follow the continuing story of Louis Wu (the main protagonist of the whole series), you can skip Chapters 1–4, 6–8, 10, 12, 14–17. In fact, if you're in a hurry or rereading the book, I think you could simply start reading at Chapter 18 without missing anything essential.The real story of the book (as opposed to the sideshow in the first half) is about the problem of looking after the Ringworld and saving it from potential disasters. There's already a protector attempting to do the job, but he may not be up to it on his own, and his relationship with Louis Wu and his companions is uneasy.There are various other protectors operating on the Ringworld, but protectors don't usually get along with each other unless they're from the same base species.(If you don't know what a protector is, it's a good idea to go back and read [b:Protector 100344 Protector (Known Space) Larry Niven https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403179200l/100344.SY75.jpg 2576385] before starting on the Ringworld series.)I find it implausible the way the main characters in this story draw up contracts with each other. A contract has value only if it can enforced in some way on both parties. But, on the Ringworld, there's no way these contracts can be enforced.This book doesn't really make sense as standalone reading. You'll read it only if you want to know what happens between the second and fourth books of the series.(Review written in 2009)

This is the 3rd book in Larry Nivens Ringworld series, also known as the known space series
As a award winning book I was hoping this series overall was going to be something I would have enjoyed, after all I am a science fiction and fantasy fan however this series thus far has disappointed me

I found this book hard to get into, with characters that I just struggle to really care about. the plot seems to be a bit disorganized, the flow being somewhat lacking. Perhaps it was the fact that it failed to keep my interest that I just did not care to much to pay attention to what I was reading

The concepts of the book and series as a whole are really good, The idea of a mysterious ring world built around a star, inhabited by many different species of hominids as a backdrop to explore different ideas concerning humanity and evolution etc... however it just failed to really do anything for me

The plot basically follows Vallavirgillin who is gathering a group of hominids to fight the vampires, meanwhile Louis and the hind most, aka puppeteer seek to save the ringworld from what is supposed to be some kind of invading force from outside but I did not feel that materialized well. Much of the plot around Louis was all about the protectors and what they are doing trying to control and rule the ring world.

by biggest problem with this book is the way it changed subjects almost add style, one minute we are talking about the vampire threat, then suddenly its to rithshara (aka sex) then back to the protectors back to sex, then back to outside threat back to sex,

There seems to be a obsession with sex between different species, you meet someone the first thing you ask is “how do you have sex can you have sex?” I just found that this really broke the story flow and you could take every mention of sex or “rithshara” out of it and not change a single thing about the story in any way.

I guess in the end Larry Niven writing style just does not work for me and I find I am not enjoying it but you may very well enjoy, 2 stars simply because i did not like it, not that i would tell you not to read it