Ringworld Summary
Larry Niven

Ringworld Summary

In Ringworld, 200-year-old human Louis Wu is recruited by a two-headed alien named Nessus to join him, a catlike warrior alien named Speaker, and the infinitely lucky human Teela Brown to explore an alien artifact. They find a Ringworld, a ribbon millions of miles long built around a distant sun. The civilization has fallen into savagery, though, and after crashing into the Ringworld, Louis must come up with a clever plan to get back to known space, hundreds of light years away.

Nessus is a member of an infamously cowardly race of aliens called puppeteers that fled known human space hundreds of years ago after discovering that the stars at the core of the galaxy had exploded into supernovae 10,000 years ago, meaning the harmful radiation will hit civilization in about 20,000 years. Nessus, who is mad enough to ride on spaceships, has stayed behind. Now, he needs help. On... View more of the Ringworld Summary