Another novel from the Ring series, awarded both the Hugo and Nebula prizes, takes place in a distant future where humans have already encountered a number of intelligent beings in space. After returning from an expedition, Louis Wu becomes a man addicted to the electric tingling of the pleasure center in his brain. He lives in hiding on one of the human planets. Then he is kidnapped and involuntarily participates in another expedition, which immediately upon arrival discovers that the Ring is deviating off its axis and will touch the Sun in a year and a half. In order for Louis to save the Ring, he must rid himself of his addiction, destroy the hyperspace drive of their ship and thus the possibility of returning, and force the Most Distant to cooperate in saving the Ring and therefore himself, while also finding the control center. The path to salvation is extraordinarily complicated and is accompanied by a thrilling plot featuring a raccoon superweapon. To save the Ring, the raccoon protector must be eliminated, as salvation is only possible at the cost of 1.5 billion lives (five percent of the Ring's population), by having the raccoon superweapon trigger and direct solar eruptions near the remaining positioning thrusters, thereby increasing their fuel supply twentyfold and thus their activity. The expedition awaits another life on the Ring.
