Ringworld cover art

Ringworld

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Ringworld

By: Larry Niven
Narrated by: Tom Parker
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel, Ringworld remains a favorite among science fiction readers and listeners.

The artifact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its center. Pierson’s puppeteers—strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens—discovered this “Ringworld” in a hitherto unexplored part of the galaxy. Curious about the immense structure, but frightened by the prospect of meeting the builders, they set about assembling a team to explore it:

Louis Wu, human—old and bored with having lived too fully for too many years, seeking an adventure, and all too capable of handling it.

Nessus, puppeteer—a trembling coward from a species with an inbuilt survival pattern of nonviolence. This particular puppeteer, however, is insane.

Speaker-to-Animals, kzin—large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. The kzin are one of the most savage life-forms known.

The party’s expedition, however, goes disastrously wrong when their ship crash-lands and its motley crew faces a daunting trek across thousands of miles of Ringworld territory.

©1970 Larry Niven (P)1996 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction Mind-bending Interstellar

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Mote in God's Eye cover art
Lucifer's Hammer cover art
Footfall cover art
A World Out of Time cover art
The Legacy of Heorot cover art
Children of Time cover art
Hyperion cover art
Gateway cover art
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) cover art
Deathworld cover art
Deathworld 3 cover art
The Man in the Maze cover art
In the Image of Gods cover art
New Spring cover art
Red Mars cover art
2001 cover art

Editor reviews

I had a chance to listen to this story on a long road trip. Larry Niven populates his universe with a plethora of strange and exotic creatures that are well developed. The basic story is well written and is about a world that is a ring around a star (with over 1,000,000 times the land area of Earth). This novel is one that you cannot stop listening to. The hours on the road just flew by as I became engrossed in the cool story. You will want to listen to more of Niven's novels that take place in the Ringworld universe. (Matt S.)
All stars
Most relevant  
Hate the accent of the narrator. The story is my absolute favourite. I really enjoyed listening to this.

I have enjoyed this so much I have planned books for the next 12 months.

Ringworld

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an excellent portrayal of a masterpiece done to the standards you would normally expect only from the BBC.

Quality to Depth

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well, I made it all the way through but it was a long journey. Whilst competently read the narrator's voice didn't sit well with me. I can imagine what an amazing story this may have been in the 70s but now it is way too long, navel gazing and technical. Bring on The Stainless Steel Rat instead!

Somewhat dated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Feels like if Star Trek had a baby with red dwarf in a good way

Great if you like hard sci fi world building

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ringworld sits comfortably at the top of its genre, a defining work in the same league as Lord of the Rings, which defined the whole genre of Fantasy. Niven could look Jules Verne in the eye without blushing. If you call yourself an SF fan and know nothing of Known Space you are no such thing!

Tom Parker is an excellent narrator. Initially I was dubious, but quickly reassured. He gives life to each character and sets an easy, natural pace that carries you through the text without ever once breaking the spell.

Get this book. Be inspired.

possibly the finest science fiction novel ever

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ringworld is a gripping tale: a product of towering technical imagination. A must for fans of the genre it is easy to see how he has influenced later authors such as Ian M Banks. It suffers from a grating misogyny which means it hasn't aged well. Kind of depressing that male science fiction authors in the 1970s could imagine astounding technical developments in the future but couldn't conceive of a change in the social status of women. Unlike some other reviewers I liked the narrator and thought he was a good match.

Classic of the genre

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ringworld is a classic SF novel for good reason. Even if some of the physics is a bit dodgy (Niven was heckled by MIT students about it, back in the day!). Presented here as an excellent example of the audiobook art.

A true classic, well performed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not my favourite of recent Sci fi classics. A bit boring and slow developing in the first half. An interesting world though. I'm going to look at at least the second of the trilogy before I make my mind up.

Average storytelling.

Meh

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was my first audio book.
I read ringworld 40 odd years ago and remembered the arc and many of the
specific incidents but not all so it was interesting listening and knowing where we heading. Like watching a film you have seen before and spotting the clues more clearly than the first time. I did frequently back up a couple of minutes to make sure I got everything.

This was well read with good expression. You know which of the characters is speaking from the voice. I hope other books are read as well.

My next book is one I do not know so it will be different experience

Classic book read well

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Slow to start, and takes some weird tangents that don't help things, but overall enjoyable. Narration is top notch

Slow in places, but good overall story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews