History YMMV / Ringworld

** Louis Wu is condescending to Teela throughout the first book, considering her little more than a child mentally due to the fact she hasn't encountered anything difficult or strenuous in her twenty years of life. Louis, himself, is two hundred years old and extremely experienced in everything. Neither his low opinion of Teela and her intelligence nor their age difference does anything to dissuade him from beginning a sexual relationship with her. This kind of chauvenism and AgeGapRomance (exaggerated by scifi as it may be) was more acceptable in 1971.
** The tasper causes a sexual high for anyone hit with it akin to an orgasm. The device is used indiscriminately on unsuspecting people as a weapon or a prank regularly played upon others. Nowadays this would be viewed as sexual assault.
*** Adding to the tasp's problematic nature, it can easily cause addiction. We see Louis Wu himself become addicted to it, and this effectively ruins his life between ''Ringworld'' and ''Ringworld Engineers.''

** The tasper causes a sexual high for anyone hit with it akin to an orgasm. The device is used indiscriminately on unsuspecting people as a weapon or a prank regularly played upon others. Nowadays this would be viewed as sexual assault.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Niven is rightly viewed as one of the hardest of hard science fiction authors and technologically literate to boot; but he quotes the constant of gravitational acceleration as 9.98 metres per second (the correct figure is 9.81, and the unit is metres per second ''squared''), and names Nereid as the larger moon of Neptune (that's Triton; Nereid is ''far'' smaller).

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: While ''Ringworld'' -- and specifically its worldbuilding and the concepts it introduced -- has received generally positive reactions, some feel that one of the book’s main weaknesses is that it didn’t do enough with its own material. An enormous, diverse world full of worldbuilding possibilities is introduced -- which the main characters spent a significant portion of the first book flying over at high speeds, deliberately trying to avoid contact with it. Likewise, some feel that very little is explored in the way of the Ringworld’s history, societies, biodiversity and religions, despite the enormous potential these had: when these subjects are brought up, they’re usually discussed for a page or two and then dropped.

** ''The Ringworld Throne'' and ''Ringworld's Children'' are also less well-regarded because of the number of {{Ass Pull}}s required by the plot (see above). ''The Ringworld Throne'' in particular suffers from focusing primarily on the Fearless Vampire Slayers, with Louis spending most of the story only watching them over the Hindmost's video feeds.

* JustHereForGodzilla: [[WebVideo/TheDomReviews Dominic Noble]] loves the concepts and the World building but doesn't care about the story and hates the characters.

** ''The Ringworld Throne'' and ''Ringworld's Children'' are arguably not as good as the first two books in the series because of the number of {{Ass Pull}}s required by the plot (see above). ''The Ringworld Throne'' also suffers from focusing primarily on the Fearless Vampire Slayers, with Louis spending most of the story only watching them over the Hindmost's video feeds.
** ''The Ringworld Engineers'' is also considered by some to be a step down in quality from the original book, mainly because of the odd hoops the characters are forced through to justify their new characterization in the story.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: While ''Ringworld'' -- and specifically its worldbuilding and the concepts it introduced -- has received generally positive reactions, some feel that one of the book’s main weaknesses is that it didn’t do enough with its own material. An enormous, diverse world full of worbuilding possibilities is introduced -- which the main characters spent a significant portion of the first book flying over at high speeds, deliberately trying to avoid contact with it. Likewise, some feel that very little is explored in the way of the Ringworld’s history, societies, biodiversity and religions, despite the enormous potential these had: when these subjects are brought up, they’re usually discussed for a page or two and then dropped.

* InferredHolocaust: The climax of ''Ringworld'' features kind of a doozy. They leave the Ring by [[spoiler: dragging their ship with shadow square wire. Thing is, they only have one end of the wire. The other is coiled up in a heavily inhabited city. Ever seen a high-tension cable break free? It can take off limbs. Now imagine ''hundreds of miles'' of ''razor sharp'' wire doing something similar...]] Apparently the author noticed this "small" problem (or a fan pointed it out) between the first book and the second, where our hero goes [[WhatTheHellHero What The Hell, Me]].
** Although the way they get the end of the wire they have is by retrieving it from the death-trap it was used to set up. The locals used it to string up the shadow square wire at neck-height, behind the protagonists.

* CanonSue: In ''Ringworld's Children'', Louis [[spoiler:is transformed into a protector, but after using his new abilities to resolve the plot, he gets better thanks to Carlos Wu's autodoc. If becoming a protector is now a reversible condition, it diminishes the BlessedWithSuck aspect that protectors have always had.]]

* AssPull: The Hindmost reveals to Louis Wu in ''The Ringworld Throne'' that he has a quantum computer and the {{nanotech}}-based autodoc invented by Louis' biological father Carlos aboard his ship, without having mentioned them at all in the previous book.

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''The Ringworld Throne'' and ''Ringworld's Children'' are arguably not as good as the first two books in the series because of the number of {{Ass Pull}}s required by the plot (see above). ''The Ringworld Throne'' also suffers from focusing primarily on the Fearless Vampire Slayers, with Louis spending most of the story only watching them over the Hindmost's video feeds.

* NeverLiveItDown: Because Red Herders are culturally monogamous, much of the conflict in the "Fearless Vampire Slayers" storyline in ''The Ringworld Throne'' comes from Tegger and Warvia fearing that they'd get a reputation for promiscuity after all the rishathra they had while under the influence of vampire scent.

* CanonSue: In ''Ringworld's Children'', Louis [[spoiler:is transformed into a protector, but after using his new abilities to resolve the plot, [[IGotBetter he gets better]] thanks to Carlos Wu's autodoc. If becoming a protector is now a reversible condition, it diminishes the BlessedWithSuck aspect that protectors have always had.]]

* CanonSue: In ''Ringworld's Children'', Louis [[spoiler:is transformed into a protector, but after using his new abilities to resolve the plot, [[IGotBetter he gets better]] thanks to Carlos Wu's autodoc. If becoming a protector is now a reversible condition, it diminishes the BlessedWithSuck aspect that protectors have always had.]] Also see WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis on the main page.

* CanonSue: In ''Ringworld's Children'', Louis [[spoiler:is transformed into a protector, but after using his new abilities to resolve the plot, [[IGotBetter he gets better]] thanks to Carlos Wu's autodoc. If becoming a protector is now a reversible condition, it diminishes the CursedWithAwesome aspect that protectors have always had.]] Also see WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis on the main page.

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''The Ringworld Throne'' and ''Ringworld's Children'' are arguably not as good as the first two books in the series because of the number of {{Ass Pull}}s required by the plot (see above). ''The Ringworld Throne'' also suffers from focusing primarily on the Fearless Vampire Hunters, with Louis spending most of the story only watching them over the Hindmost's video feeds.