End Scene of Ringworld
One of my readers admits she has never read to the end of Larry Nivens’ widely admired RINGWORLD
As a public service, I will describe the final scenes in detail of his Nebula & Hugo-Award winning classic:
Louis Wu manages to destroy the Thrint Slaver by splashing her with a bucket of liquid oxygen. As a reward, Nessus is given a courage by the Ringworld Engineer, who turns out to be a Pak Protector; Teela Brown gets a heart and marries Conan the Barbarian; and Speaker-to-Animals gets a brain; and Louis Wu is carried back home to Auntie Em, who lives in the Kansas Arcology, but she has been arrested for giving unlicensed birth. He wakes to find his friends and family gathered around him, and when he insists that the Ringworld was a truly live and real place, the ARM police zap him with a tasp over and over again, until he admits there is no place like home.
The best scene, in my opinion, is when Speaker-to-Animals bursts into song:
"I would like to stab and slaughter
Mankind and his daughter
Without scruple or reserve —
[do DOOT dolootle to-doo!]
But Kzin has lost four stellar wars
I’d claim it was a long lost cause
IF I ONLY HAD LESS NERVE"
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
