Unfortunately, it looks like the Builders are long gone and advanced technology which kept cities hovering in the sky has failed, leaving long-deserted ruins and a primitive medieval-level society of worshipping cults who wait for the Builders’ return. After an accidental crash onto the surface, the team have to journey across it to try and find some sort of technology that can help them escape. The Ringworld itself has been moulded into shape and is very much like Earth, including having its own human-looking populations.

Louis and Teela meanwhile represent the human race - Louis the older, wiser, and more jaded adventurer and Teela a very naive and optimistic young woman. Speaker-To-Animals is an eight-foot tall cat whose race, the kzinti, are a conflict-driven species who have been warring with humans, but suffered heavy losses, leading to a current, touchy, peace. In this case we have a highly sensitive and ‘insane’ Puppeteer, which is how he describes himself, who takes charge one minute and then screws himself up in a ball of terror the next. With the promise of this new technology as a reward, they set off to understand more about how Ringworld was created and whether it poses any threat.įirst published in 1970 and now included in the SF Masterworks series, this Hugo award winning novel is considered to be a major influence on space exploration sci fi where a giant alien object - like the spaceship which appears in our solar system in Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, published a few years later - is discovered, prompting a small party to go and explore. Recruited by the Puppeteer Nessus, Louis is joined by another human, a young woman called Teela Brown, and a cat-shaped alien called Speaker-To-Animals to trial new technology developed by the Puppeteers, which vastly reduces the time spent travelling through space, and explore the new world. Still in perfect health, thanks to a drug called boosterspice, he has friends all over the world, but is bored. On Earth it is the year 2850 and Louis is celebrating his 200th birthday.

Who created the ring nobody knows, but an alien race known as Puppeteers (a tri-legged organism with two heads), threatened by its existence, want to know more about it and send a small team of recruits off to explore and possibly make contact with whatever lives there now.

Ringworld starts off as nothing more than a brilliant blue eclipse, off in the deep reaches of space a mysterious, ancient structure one million miles wide and 600 million miles in circumference.

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