I inhaled this third in the Ringworld series in a few days and while I understand the criticism of many of the Amazon reviewers who didn’t like it (mostly because author Larry Niven drops you into it without much prep and doesn’t seem to be taking you anywhere) I enjoyed getting to know the various hominid species. Read carefully, you soon see where it’s going and why. But anyone encountering it alone without having read the previous two would be lost, so it’s a very poor starter.
But it’s a treat if you read them in order–especially one after another the way I have without intervening years to cloud the memory. It’s also a cliffhanger, which I’ve read is resolved, and then some, in Ringworld’s Children, which appears to be the final book. I hope not. Niven hasn’t explored more than a tenth of the available terrain. But maybe he’s tired of it. Maybe I will be, too, after number four. But I doubt it. I’ve put a library hold on it, and hope to have it by Tuesday or so.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 