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to make me feel better about various things. The other day I re-read The Ringworld Engineers and The Ringworld Throne. This had the unintended effect of making me feel worse about various things.
1) I would like to demand an apology from Little Me for reading these books and thinking they were basically fine.
2) I would like to demand an apology from my mother for never censoring my reading material.
3) I would like to demand an apology from the publishers for not insisting that the series be renamed "Orgyworld" upon Niven's initially turning in the draft for Ringworld Engineers.
4) The Ringworld is really big and has thousands of different intelligent species on it, and it's kind of cut into two separate worlds in the middle by two massive impassable oceans (the obvious implications of which are never really addressed). Pretty much every culture is nonetheless totally down for casual interspecies orgies just whenever, and will in fact be insulted if their guests do not join in the orgies. Compulsory Xeno Orgyworld.
(Bunch of goddamn Homestucks.)
5) Niven has a thing for coming up with alien species in which the women are unable to consent to and/or enjoy sex. He's got to two species with non-sentient women and one with women who don't orgasm in RE alone. Plus two where everyone goes into heat, but he obviously only deals with the effects upon women.
6) Every single person on Orgyworld is straight and cis? Every single person in every single alien species on Orgyworld, all straight and cis? How does that work logistically, even? During all those compulsory xeno orgies, in which some species' women are necessarily disinterested.
7) One species was able to form a Ringworld-spanning empire specifically because their xeno orgy skillset was so superior. Fucking Homestucks.
8) I'm reasonably certain that Consider Phlebas was Iain M. Banks throwing a semi-dignified shitfit about Larry Niven. It stopped being dignified when he blew up the orbital and you could hear the psychic echo of his scream of "THIS IS WHAT I THINK OF YOUR FUCKING RINGWORLD." The Eater sequence also wasn't subtle.
9) Seriously, where does Niven get off not addressing the world being split in half by two impassable fucking oceans.
10) Sad Larry Niven Thing: I'm sure it never even occurred to him that Teela would be a much better viewpoint character than Louis.
1) I would like to demand an apology from Little Me for reading these books and thinking they were basically fine.
2) I would like to demand an apology from my mother for never censoring my reading material.
3) I would like to demand an apology from the publishers for not insisting that the series be renamed "Orgyworld" upon Niven's initially turning in the draft for Ringworld Engineers.
4) The Ringworld is really big and has thousands of different intelligent species on it, and it's kind of cut into two separate worlds in the middle by two massive impassable oceans (the obvious implications of which are never really addressed). Pretty much every culture is nonetheless totally down for casual interspecies orgies just whenever, and will in fact be insulted if their guests do not join in the orgies. Compulsory Xeno Orgyworld.
(Bunch of goddamn Homestucks.)
5) Niven has a thing for coming up with alien species in which the women are unable to consent to and/or enjoy sex. He's got to two species with non-sentient women and one with women who don't orgasm in RE alone. Plus two where everyone goes into heat, but he obviously only deals with the effects upon women.
6) Every single person on Orgyworld is straight and cis? Every single person in every single alien species on Orgyworld, all straight and cis? How does that work logistically, even? During all those compulsory xeno orgies, in which some species' women are necessarily disinterested.
7) One species was able to form a Ringworld-spanning empire specifically because their xeno orgy skillset was so superior. Fucking Homestucks.
8) I'm reasonably certain that Consider Phlebas was Iain M. Banks throwing a semi-dignified shitfit about Larry Niven. It stopped being dignified when he blew up the orbital and you could hear the psychic echo of his scream of "THIS IS WHAT I THINK OF YOUR FUCKING RINGWORLD." The Eater sequence also wasn't subtle.
9) Seriously, where does Niven get off not addressing the world being split in half by two impassable fucking oceans.
10) Sad Larry Niven Thing: I'm sure it never even occurred to him that Teela would be a much better viewpoint character than Louis.
