This is unashamedly influenced by Ringworld and Rendezvous With Rama. Although written within Nuttall's "Ark Royal" series, a good part of it is the travels of our heroes through a Dyson Sphere, in the apparent absence of its builders, but in the presence of a (pretty much) human population of roughly a city-state level of political organisation. with technology more primitive than this might suggest, because of lack of resources, among other factors. I bought this partly just because this style of plot is rare. I don't think that it measures up to its illustrious models, but it's reasonably entertaining, and I quite like the Ark Royal universe - I will probably buy the sequel, especially after looking at the free sample, which suggests that there may be some skullduggery as multiple human nations will bw investigating the sphere.

In article <c9acad26-8dc7-4714-9b62-82cd2bc387c7n@googlegroups.com>,
Andrew McDowell <mcdowell_ag@sky.com> wrote:
>This is unashamedly influenced by Ringworld and Rendezvous With Rama.
>Although written within Nuttall's "Ark Royal" series, a good part of it
>is the travels of our heroes through a Dyson Sphere, in the apparent
>absence of its builders, but in the presence of a (pretty much) human
>population of roughly a city-state level of political organisation.
>with technology more primitive than this might suggest, because of lack
>of resources, among other factors. I bought this partly just because
>this style of plot is rare. I don't think that it measures up to its
>illustrious models, but it's reasonably entertaining, and I quite like
>the Ark Royal universe - I will probably buy the sequel, especially
>after looking at the free sample, which suggests that there may be some
>skullduggery as multiple human nations will bw investigating the
>sphere.

Does this follow the rule that anyone encountering a megastructure
will be forced to walk across a lot of it?
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 8:20:57 PM UTC, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <c9acad26-8dc7-4714...@googlegroups.com>,
> Andrew McDowell <mcdow...@sky.com> wrote:
> >This is unashamedly influenced by Ringworld and Rendezvous With Rama.
> >Although written within Nuttall's "Ark Royal" series, a good part of it
> >is the travels of our heroes through a Dyson Sphere, in the apparent
> >absence of its builders, but in the presence of a (pretty much) human
> >population of roughly a city-state level of political organisation.
> >with technology more primitive than this might suggest, because of lack
> >of resources, among other factors. I bought this partly just because
> >this style of plot is rare. I don't think that it measures up to its
> >illustrious models, but it's reasonably entertaining, and I quite like
> >the Ark Royal universe - I will probably buy the sequel, especially
> >after looking at the free sample, which suggests that there may be some
> >skullduggery as multiple human nations will bw investigating the
> >sphere.
> Does this follow the rule that anyone encountering a megastructure
> will be forced to walk across a lot of it?
> --
> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
The locals seem to use canoes for travel between cities, so there is a good bit of canoeing as well as walking. They exit from the sphere via a specially designed contraption sent down (at some risk) from the main (star)ship of the expedition. Of course, since it is a megastructure, "a lot of it" is true if measured in terms of hours spent travelling or sore feet but far from true on the scale of the megastructure.