by Larry Niven
First published 1985
Louis Wu has survived for centuries, but immortality has left him bored and restless. The alien Nessus offers him escape: a journey to investigate something extraordinary. Wu joins an unlikely crew including Teela Brown, whose supernatural luck seems to bend reality around her, and Speaker-To-Animals, a predatory kzin from a species that views humans as prey. They travel to the Ringworld, a colossal artificial ring encircling a sun with living space equivalent to millions of Earths. The expedition goes wrong when their vessel crashes onto the ring's surface. Now the four must trek across impossible distances on foot, avoiding hostile natives while searching for clues about the vanished builders of this megastructure. Wu begins to suspect the puppeteers who organized this mission have hidden motives. Survival means not just crossing the ring's enormous landscape but understanding why these fearful aliens assembled such a dangerous team.
Genres: science-fiction, adventure, space-opera, hard-science-fiction
Vibes: epic, immersive, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family, hidden-motives, survival-against-odds
Setting: Ringworld
Audio Cassette · Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Content warnings: violence