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The Mote in God's Eye (Mass Market Paperback)

by Larry Niven (Author), Jerry Pournelle (Author) "Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 10.99
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Product Details

Product Description

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In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched.

In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization--at least one million years old--that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they've been unable to solve in over a million years.

This is the first collaboration between Niven and Pournelle, two masters of hard science fiction, and it combines Pournelle's interest in the military and sociology with Niven's talent for creating interesting, believable aliens. The novel meticulously examines every aspect of First Contact, from the Moties' biology, society, and art, to the effects of the meeting on humanity's economics, politics, and religions. And all the while suspense builds as we watch the humans struggle toward the truth. --Brooks Peck



Review

"Columbus Dispatch"

A superlatively fine novel...no writer has ever come up with a more appealing, intriguing, and workable concept of aliens.

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"Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

117 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (21)
3 star:
 (12)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (117 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, Aug 31 2004
This review is from: Mote In Gods Eye (Paperback)
I first read this one at 15 and have been dying to review it ever since! This is an epic space opera played out on a grand scale, with an engaging cast of characters and bursting with ideas. It's theme of first contact with aliens is handled better than any other example I can think of in SF.

Set a thousand years in the future, the novel takes place in a fragmented space empire reeling from a series of civil wars. Against this background an ailing warship is sent to investigate an enormous unidentified vessel approaching the sun. This turns out to be powered by a "light sail", a sheet of gossamer fabric thousands of miles across which the ship must navigate against: this is one of the earliest and most dramatic uses of the "sunjammer" thesis first postulated by Robert Forward in the (1950s?) The discovery of dead aliens aboard and the subsesquent expedition to the alien homeworlds reveal a fantastically advanced culture locked into a tragic cycle of overpopulation and war, and with the meeting of technologies, threatens human survival as they begin to learn the secret of faster than light travel which would enable them to swarm through the galaxy.

There are passages of great potency and swashbuckling in the book: the encounter with the alien ship, the destruction of one of the human ships and the voyage across the foreign planet by fugitive survivors are unforgettable, as is the genuine sense of wonder evoked by the description of the alien civilisation.

Unfortunately the book does have its faults: it is immensely long and lacks real descriptive power robbing it of its visual potential unless you are empowered with a superb visual imagination. It also adopts the language of sailing to an unwarranted extent giving it the feel of a seafaring tale, and the future described is peppered with terms associated with the British Empire, with minor characters who sound as if they served at Waterloo. Also, the lack of real drama in some important passages weakens the whole and gives it at at times a wearily trudging pace. The last hundred pages are taken up in political wrangling which further interfere with but do not spoil the tremendous power of the whole.

Despite these weaknesses, THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE is an unforgettable read: its feeling of exploration and adventure are rarely matched in SF: plus its basis in hard science renders it a must for every fan of technological science-fiction.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Larry Niven ... another way to spell unique, Jul 10 2004
By Michael (Orleans, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mote In Gods Eye (Paperback)
Unexpectedly one of the best books I have read, Larry Niven creates a world with a mystery. A world where common humanoid biology has been turned on it's ear. Followed by the equally compelling "The Gripping Hand"
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4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful pacing, Jul 6 2004
By Rujith de Silva (Woburn MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The story is wonderfully well-paced, with three distinct "action"
sections, and a final court-room style showdown. Each action section
grips you to the climax, and then you take a breather and start
building up to the next. I'd love to see a film based on this! The
science fiction elements are good, but it'd still make a decent story
without it. However, the romance is rather poorly done. - Rujith.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars What's all the fuss about?
I recently noticed a couple of people online saying how great this book was so I thought I'd try it.

What a waste. Read more

Published on Jun 16 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars the middle was awesome!
I didn't think that the beginning was all that great. Though, oddly enough, once I finished the book I actually liked the beginning. Read more
Published on May 6 2004 by Cully Larson

4.0 out of 5 stars Meet the Moties
In this classic first-contact novel, we meet the Moties. Inhabitants of a isolated star system, they are like nothing man has ever encountered before. Read more
Published on Mar 18 2004 by J. Vilches

5.0 out of 5 stars Jerry's Secret Weapon
Jerry Pournelle's "universe" consists primarily of military fiction in support of a monarchy. Read more
Published on Mar 14 2004 by Bart Leahy

2.0 out of 5 stars not really convincing
This book was at times quite interesting to read and there are some intriguing ideas, but somehow it can't really convince. Read more
Published on Feb 19 2004 by D. Marufow

5.0 out of 5 stars Niven and Pournelle's `Mote in God's Eye'
This, along with their earlier collaboration ``Lucifer's Hammer'' and later ``Footfall,'' is among Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's finest work. Read more
Published on Dec 23 2003 by Daniel A. Hart

1.0 out of 5 stars Way Too Paranoid - A Terrible Book
This book had all the makings of an interesting first contact book. However, it simply kept to the dark side of human nature and all the evils that humans will do. Read more
Published on Nov 13 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars They need to make a movie out of this book
After almost four decades of reading SF, I consider this the best SF novel ever written. The universe is interesting, the plot is creative and tight, the action is crisp, and the... Read more
Published on Sep 27 2003 by Billy Hollis

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid Hard SF piece
The strength in this book is the Motie civilization itself. The authors create a very believable society of aliens who have a severe problem of their own. Read more
Published on Sep 11 2003 by Bradford Hull

5.0 out of 5 stars All hail Niven and Pournelle
I became a Larry Niven fan in the early '80s when I was a kid and I must confess that when I first tried to read this book (in 1978) I gave up almost immediately. Read more
Published on May 18 2003 by Rob Banzai

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