The Mote in God's Eye

As much fun and excitement as the first few times I read it.
Great characters, a fascinating storyline and a rich far future milieu.
For those who haven't read this classic, do!
For those who have, it's a wonderful in subsequent readings.

Kindle edition.
Brilliant creation of a civilization so like our own, and so very, very alien. Humans, both the individual actors and the galactic politics, seem more difficult to believe in. Well, it's a classic, so everybody with a sci-fi heart should read it. Nice enough, but it's not a story that makes me longing for sequels.

A sci-fi classic. Should have been optioned for a movie, and with today's CGI it would be a real thinking-person's suspense-drama. Published in 1975, it is not at all dated and remains remarkably readable.

One of the better Science Fiction novels ever. Relatively science-heavy, and the story is excellent. When finished, be sure to read the sequel. "The Gripping Hand".

Niven and Pournelle- the best science fiction team ever.

This is one of those great scifi books that never gets old. I read it when I was a kid and I read it again as an adult. It withstands the test of time. Not much to say other than that. It's a classic.

The best hard science fiction novel I've ever read. Niven and Pournelle together are a great team. Full of fun, well thought out bits about future and alien technology that help make a detailed, real world. Fast moving and fun read.

This is one of those great scifi books that never gets old. I read it when I was a kid and I read it again as an adult. It withstands the test of time. Not much to say other than that. It's a classic.

The best hard science fiction novel I've ever read. Niven and Pournelle together are a great team. Full of fun, well thought out bits about future and alien technology that help make a detailed, real world. Fast moving and fun read.

This is one of the all-time great science fiction classics and explores the classic theme of first contact with an alien race. Also leaves you wondering of the ramifications of what happens to a species without interstellar travel. Like Earth?

Niven and Pournelle write the most consistently outstanding alien societies. They are never simple, never just humans with tentacles. Their society matches their physiology, which matches their history, and it all makes sense. Read this for fun, read it to learn, but most of all, remember, when we really meet them, they will not be like us...

The Mote in Gods Eye. 1974 SyFy
This paperback edition has never been read.The front cover has a tiny bit of scuffing.The back cover is intact. I believe this book has been in the original shipping container from the day of printing. I bought the first edition the day of release at a local retail book store..Sold a large collection of SySf to 3 dealers in 1986. I certainly will buy more books from this seller.. Highly recommend the readers of my review to do the same.
Thank You

Sometimes s great to re-read a classic after many years, sometimes not so much so. This was a case of not so much so. While originally this would have been a 5 star book for me, there's something that's been overcome by time and experience and that's the story telling. While this is a classic of first contact it's also a classic of ineptitude and surprisingly from "senior" characters. This shows primarily with the initial compromise of the MacArthur to the Motes and to Mr. Bury. While both become vehicles for the story to continue the path it took, it also is something fails at the same time. This is a classic and a must read but if you've read many first contact books (CJ Cherryh is a favorite of mine) I believe you'll come to agree with me.

A very well thought-out story of first contact, but technically mostly second contact. Co-author Larry Niven claims they wanted to write "the epitome of first contact stories". They didn't fail, and it's probably the 800-pound gorilla in any discussion of first contact literature.

The aliens are interestingly alien, not just in morphology, but in capabilities, psychology and outlook. The twists, while adequately foreshadowed, are hard to pin down ahead of time.

This is not a story about people, it's a story about events. The narrator can read characters's minds, but often doesn't bother to, being more interested in what's actually happening. It has a bit more character focus than the original Rama and Foundation books, but less than their sequels. I generally prefer this sort of SF, but if you want to read stories about people and their inner turmoils, you may be disappointed.

There are the minor matters that the 1974 book has a distant future empire that may a step backwards on gender equality; the one "bad guy" character is a Muslim merchant with the goals and ethics of Carter Burke in Aliens; there's a Russian admiral in command of a ship called Lenin, whose job is basically to threaten to kill all the protagonists every few chapters. The good guys, of course, are coded as Anglo-Saxon. It was written in 1974, so I'm willing cut it some slack, as we're here for the SF, not the sociology class.

Audible narrator N.J. Ganser has a bland, slightly creaky voice that's very adequate for classic SF putting me in mind of the War of the Worlds narrator. He's not exciting, but he leaves you to focus on the story - and I liked his accents. Although this gets better, he occasionally makes his sole female human sound like a ditz, which she definitely wasn't written as.

To be clear, "some sexual content" is essentially "she saw on the camera that the alien squirrels were having sex, and ran over to observe in person".

"Blast yer eyes, boatswain and belay that order!"

The only thing that separates this from a Hornblower novel, is that the marines are not called "Lobsters". Oh, and spaceships.

This is a futuristic sci-fi novel where everyone sounds and acts like a 1800-century british naval officer. The societies are practically identical, even with kings and viceroys and marqis's.

There is even a Governors daughter that needs protection, dining with the captain of the ship and all. Of course she is the only female on board the HMS Indefatigable, sorry the "McArthur".

The attitude to women btw is also from the Hornblower century. Women, bah! They have no place in the future navy!

I find most of this kind of unrealistic, I take issue with the notion that a future spacefaring and galaxy-wide empire would be this archaic. Paradoxically this makes "The Mote" one of few books where the aliens are more believable than the humans.

However, if you can look passed this, or have no issue with it, this is a great read, good storytelling, in the "First Contact"-subgenre.

This novel holds up well. Aside from the overt sexism, which is explained within the framework of the society, it has a very current style. Thought provoking, entertaining, and definitely a must-read for sci-fi fans.

I reread this book because I remembered how much I enjoyed the book the first time. Many years older now and it did not have the same impact. Like so many books the author didn't seem to know how to end the book. It fell flat for me and I felt let down.

A masterwork of science fiction and space opera. The immense talents of Niven & Pournelle are on full display. Not just an excellent adventure, but one of the finest examples of alien culture and universe building to be found in the genre.

This is fantastic. It really hammers home why NIVEN is considered such a master of popular SciFi. It's a gripping story with very cool characterisation and socio-political issues to boot. This, and the sequel "Gripping Hand" should be required reading for anyone who likes their spaceships.

The thing that Niven does better than anyone is to create fascinating alien races. Too often, aliens are written as if they were humans, even if they do not have human form.

Niven bases his aliens on fundamental ideas, then spins that out into a fully developed culture, point of view, belief system and behavioral characteristics. It's absolutely brilliant, and equally great examples can be found throughout his work.

If it weren't for the Moties themselves, this would be rather ordinary (if very well-written and engaging to the point of being a page-turner) space opera, complete with a handsome square-jawed hero who is rather obviously a take on Horatio Hornblower, a princess figure, stereotypical scientists, utterly predictable military men and so on.

But oh, those Moties! The Mote civilization, biology and motivations firmly establish this book as one of the greatest works of science fiction.

This, for me, is one of about five "desert island" books. Right up there with the original Dune.

The "Motie" civilization makes contact with the Empire of Man. Are they friend? Foe? If they're hostile, do they possess the means to bring destruction to humanity? What do they have that humans don't? All these questions will go through your mind as you read, and you may nor may not find answers in this book!

I have to agree with previous reviewers who have been disappointed by this book. The authors start with some interesting ideas about an alien civilization (my main reason for giving the book three stars) but then go on to do quite a mediocre job of developing a setup and plot to go around these ideas. First of all, I can think of dozens of scenarios for human civilization in the 31st century that are far more interesting than the one presented here. The authors seem to have expended the least amount of energy possible in working out their universe. The most disappointing thing about it is that there has been zero social development since 1974 (it actually seems more like the 50's in many ways). As an indicator of how unoriginal this society is, most of the planets in the "Empire" have names in the form of "New [substitute Earth city/country here]." Navy ships have names like MacArthur, Patton and Lenin. Why? Couldn't they spend a little effort and come up with a scenario that wasn't quite so silly? My second beef with this book is that the human characters are as dull as their society. They have absolutely no depth and are easily predictable because they are all cliches. A couple of humans, Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, have some potential but they never do develop into substantial characters. The alien characters actually have more presence and carry more interest than the humans. This is odd because it is obvious that the authors really want the reader to empathize with both races (especially humans), but in the end they couldn't make me care about the humans at all.
I think what bothered me the most about this book, though, was that I kept seeing paths down which the authors could have gone that held much more interest than the ones they chose. It seems that they never really bothered to develop all the implications of their original idea.

Mildly entertaining, particularly at first, but eventually the plot fizzles out somewhat. I was not enticed to read the sequels. I chose to read this book because it had been described as an SF classic - it has not become one of mine, I'm afraid.