Glad you like my Chronology! Sorry for not listing the Man-Kzin War stories. I link to Marc Carleson's Chronology on mine, if you want more dates his has many, many more. I was mainly just trying to figure out a consistant dating for Niven's stories, as a prelude to working on a Concordance. (I can't use the label "Encyclopedia"-- someone's already used that.)
What is
Ringworld about? Well yes, it's-- I think-- the first book about what David Gerrold calls "an Enormous Big Thing"
But more than that, it's the reaction of four very different characters
to that EBT, and how they interact with each other while exploring the Ringworld, that makes the story.
It really does make the story more interesting if you read the stories in the
Neutron Star collection. Sadly, that is out of print. But don't despair-- you can order used copies thru Amazon.com, or at my favorite place to look for used books on the Internet--
AddALL Used and Out of Print book search