Although I won't rule out the possibility that I'll read Ringworld's Children, nothing could be further from my mind at this moment. That's pretty much the story of the Ringworld trilogy, which is now a tetralogy. He continued tweaking and modifying both the story and the physics underlying it, not recognizing all the while that, in this relentless pursuit of perfection, he was cheapening something that had once been great. Still the author was not satisfied! He wrote a third book in the series, introducing still more retcons and still more rishathra. Although it received nominations for the Hugo and the Nebula, this sequel did not win any awards. He included several retcons and focused a great deal on recreational sex conducted between hominids of different species for the purposes of trade negotiations ( rishathra). However, the author decided to address these questions by writing a sequel. It is now, essentially, a classic.įans with engineering degrees from MIT decided to crunch the numbers and ask difficult questions about how this Big Dumb Object could actually work the way the author said it works. It would go on to win the trifecta: the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel, not to mention become the iconic novel about Big Dumb Objects. Once upon a time, a science-fiction author wrote a novel about a Big Dumb object.

Ringworld throne