Pun Salad

Well, that was disappointing. Larry Niven and I have grown apart. It's hard to know who's more to blame. I'd like to think it's him.

The Ringworld Throne, written in 1996, is the third in the Ringworld series. Set after the events of number two, The Ringworld Engineers, it follows further adventures of Louis Wu, with his Kzin and Puppeteer co-explorers. In the previous book, the Ringworld was saved from running into its own star, but at what Wu thinks was a grievous loss of life. Hominids have also populated various ecological niches, evolving different appearances, intelligences, and survival strategies. (There's a Wikipedia page devoted to listing and describing them.) They engage in rishathra, hanky-panky between subspecies. And we follow some of them too.

Part of the problem: I'm pretty sure that I lost track of what exactly the plot was about while reading the book. Why are they doing this? What's the point? I had no idea. Could I maybe figure it out by backtracking and rereading? Probably. Maybe. Do I want to do that? No.

So I've removed the fourth Ringworld novel, Ringworld's Children from my to-be-read pile.