{"product_id":"ringworld-throne-isbn-9780345412966","title":"Ringworld Throne","description":"\u003cb\u003eCome back to the Ringworld . . . the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered.  A place of untold technological wonders, home to a myriad humanoid races, and world of some of the most beloved science fiction stories ever written!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe human, Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee . . . legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomething is going on with the Protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld.  Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda—if anyone dares approach them to learn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach race on the Ringworld has always had its own Protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a Protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld Throne?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Niven’s work has been an intriguing and consistent universe, and this book is the keystone of the arch. . . . [His] technique is wonderfully polished, his characters and their situations are nicely drawn . . . wraps up (maybe) a corner of a very interesting universe.”—\u003ci\u003eSan Diego Union-Tribune \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Niven’s work has been an intriguing and consistent universe, and this book is the keystone of the arch. . . . [His] technique is wonderfully polished, his characters and their situations are nicely drawn . . . wraps up (maybe) a corner of a very interesting universe.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Diego Union-Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eLarry Niven\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1938 in Los Angeles, California. In 1956, he entered the California Institute of Technology, only to flunk out a year and a half later after discovering a bookstore jammed with used science-fiction magazines. He graduated with a B.A. in mathematics (minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Kansas, in 1962, and completed one year of graduate work before he dropped out to write. His first published story, “The Coldest Place,” appeared in the December 1964 issue of \u003ci\u003eWorlds of If\u003c\/i\u003e. He won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1966 for “Neutron Star” and in 1974 for “The Hole Man.” The 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novelette was given to \u003ci\u003eThe Borderland of Sol\u003c\/i\u003e. His novel \u003ci\u003eRingworld\u003c\/i\u003e won the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmar, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.Excerpt: Chapter One: A WAR OF SCENTS \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA.D. 2892\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCloud covered the sky like a gray stone plate. The yellow grass had a wilted look: too much rain, not enough sun. No doubt the sun was straight overhead and the Arch was still in place, but Valavirgillin hadn't seen either for twenty days now.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe cruisers rolled through an endless drizzle, through high grass, on wheels as tall as a man. Vala and Kay rode the steering bench; Barok rode above them as gunner. Barok's daughter Forn was asleep under an awning.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAny day now--any hour--\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSabarokaresh pointed. \"Is that what you've been looking for?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eValavirgillin stood up in her seat. She could just see where the vastness of grass turned to a vastness of stubble.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKaywerbrimmis said, \"They leave this pattern. We'll be seeing sentries or a harvesting party. Boss, I don't understand how you knew they'd be Grass Giants here. I've never been this far to starboard myself. You, you're from Center City? That's a hundred daywalks to port.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Word came to me,\" Valavirgillin said.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHe didn't ask more. A merchant's secrets were her own.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThey rolled into the stubble and turned. The cruisers rolled faster now. Stubble to right, shoulder-high grass to the left. Far ahead, birds were wheeling and diving. Big dark birds: scavengers.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKaywerbrimmis touched his handguns for reassurance. Muzzle-loading, the barrels as long as his forearm. Big Sabarokaresh eased back into the turret. The top of the payload shell housed the cannon, and that might be needed. The other wagons were swinging left and right, covering Kay's wagon so that he could investigate in safety.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe birds wheeled away. They'd left black feathers everywhere. Twenty big birds, gorged until they could hardly fly. What might feed so many?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBodies. Little hominids with pointy skulls, lying some in stubble, some in uncut grass, stripped of most of their meat. Hundreds! They might have been children, but the children among them were even smaller.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eVala looked for clothing. In strange terrain you never knew which hominids might be intelligent.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSabarokaresh dropped to earth, gun in hand. Kaywerbrimmis hesitated; but nothing sudden popped out of the grass, and he followed. Foranayeedli popped a sleepy head through the window and gaped. She was a girl of sixty falans or so, just reaching mating age.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Since last night,\" Kay said presently.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe smell of corruption wasn't strong yet. If Ghouls hadn't arrived before the birds, then these victims must have been slain near dawn. Vala asked, \"How did they die? If this is local Grass Giant practice, we want none of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"This could've been done by birds. Cracked bones, see? But cracked by big beaks, for marrow. These are Gleaners, Boss. See, this is how they dress, in feathers. They follow the harvesters. The Gleaners hunt smeerps, firedots, anything that digs. Cutting the grass exposes the burrows.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e--Feathers, right. These feathers were black and red and purple-green, not just black. \"So what happened here?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eForn said, \"I know that smell.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBeneath the corruption: what? Something familiar, not itself unpleasant ... but it made Foranayeedli uneasy.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eValavirgillin had hired Kaywerbrimmis to lead the caravan because he was local, because he seemed competent. The rest were his people. None had ever been this far to starboard.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eVala knew more of this place than any of them ... if she was right about where she was.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Well, where are they?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Watching us, maybe,\" Kay said.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eVala could see a long way from her perch at the bow of the cruiser. The veldt was flat, the yellow grass was chopped short. Grass Giants stood seven and eight feet tall. Where grass stood half their height, could they hide in that?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe traders pulled their cruisers into a triangle. Their midday dinner was fruit and roots from stores on the running boards. They cooked some local grass with the roots. They'd caught no fresh meat.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThey took their time. Most hominids were more approachable after feeding. If Grass Giants thought like Machine People, they would let strangers eat before they made contact.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNo ambassador came. The caravan rolled on.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThree cruisers rolled sluggishly across the veldt with no animal to pull them. Big square wooden platforms rode four wheels at the corners; the motor, centered aft, turned two more drive wheels. The cast-iron payload shell rode ahead of the motor, like an iron house with a fat chimney. Big leaf springs were under the bow, under the steering bench. A savage might wonder at the tower on the payload housing, but what would he think if he had never seen a cannon?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHarmless.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eShapes the color of the golden grass, shapes too big to be men: two big humanoids watched from the crest of a far hill. Vala saw them only when one turned and loped away across the veldt. The other ran along the crest, toward where the cruisers would cross.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHe waited in their path, watching them come. He was nearly the color of the golden grass: golden skin, golden mane. Big. Armed with a great curved sword.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKaywerbrimmis walked to meet the giant. Valavirgillin set the cruiser following him like a friendly ridebeast.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDistance put strange twists in the trade dialect. Kaywerbrimmis had tried to teach Vala some of the variations in pronunciation, new words and altered meanings. She listened now, trying to make out what Kay was saying.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"We come in peace ... intend to trade ... Farsight Trading ... rishathra?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe giant's eyes flicked back and forth while Kay talked. Back and forth between their jaws, Forn and Vala and Kay and Barok. The giant was amused.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHis face was hairier than any Machine Person's! Pretty Forn's jawline fringe of beard just growing, just long enough to take a curl at the corners. Vala's was turning elegantly white, two points at the chin. Other hominids were too often distracted by Machine People beards, especially on the women.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe giant waited out Kay's chattering, then strode past him and took a seat on the cruiser's running board. He leaned against the payload shell and immediately jerked away from the hot metal. Recovered his dignity and waved the cruiser forward.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBig Barok held his post above the giant. Forn climbed up beside her father. She was tall, too, but the giant made them both look stunted.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKaywerbrimmis asked, \"Your camp, that way?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe giant's dialect was less comprehensible. \"Yes. Come. You want shelter. We want warriors.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"How do you practice rishathra?\" It was the first thing any trader would want to know, and any beta male, too, if these were like Grass Giants elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe giant said, \"Come quick, else learn too much of rishathra.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"What?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Vampires.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eForn's eyes widened. \"That smell!\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKay smiled, seeing not a threat, but an opportunity. \"I am Kaywerbrimmis. Here are Valavirgillin, my patron, and Sabarokaresh and Foranayeedli. In the other cruisers they are Machine People, too. We hope to persuade you to join our Empire.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"I am Paroom. Our leader you must address as Thurl.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eVala let Kay do the talking. Grass Giant sword-scythes had too little reach. Farsight Trading's guns would make short work of a vampire attack. That should impress the Bull, and then--business.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eGrass Giants, scores of them, were pulling wagons filled with grass through the gap in a wall of heaped earth.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"This isn't normal,\" Kaywerbrimmis said. \"Grass Giants don't build walls.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eParoom heard. \"We had to learn. Forty-three falans ago the Reds were fighting us. We learned walls from them.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eForty-three falans was 430 rotations of the star patterns, where the sky rotated every seven and a half days. In forty falans Valavirgillin had made herself rich, had mated, had carried four children, then gambled her wealth away. These last three falans she had been traveling.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eForty-three falans was a long time.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eShe asked or tried to ask, \"Was that when the clouds came?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, when the old Thurl boiled a sea.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYes! This was the place she sought.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKaywerbrimis shrugged it off as local superstition. \"How long have you had vampires?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eParoom said, \"Always there are some. In this last few falans, suddenly they are everywhere, more every night. This morning we found nearly two hundred Gleaners, all dead. Tonight they will hunger again. The walls and our crossbows hold them back. Here,\" said the sentry, \"bring your wagons through the gap and prepare them to fight.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThey had \u003ci\u003ecrossbows\u003c\/i\u003e ?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAnd the light was going.","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304875348197,"sku":"NP9780345412966","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345412966.jpg?v=1767735793","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/ringworld-throne-isbn-9780345412966","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}