Ringworld: A Novel

Best Novel 1970 Nebula Award Best Novel 1971 Hugo Award The artifact is a vast circular ribbon of matter some 180 million miles across with a sun at its center. Piersons 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 partys 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.