The mote in God's eye

The authors did a great job on this one.

The setting in this is superb. It starts out with a chronology of events that immediately made this world really interesting to me. I loved it all the way. Characters are good.

Having watched quite a bit of Star Trek old TV shows really helped me picture a bunch of the things and dialogues in this. It made it really enjoyable.

The Moties are one of the most interesting species I've seen, even if I couldn't take it seriously as a name, its just too cute, which I guess makes sense. Their discovery and their history is quite interesting too, so many what ifs.

It is not the most action packed or the most intense book overall, but it has its moments of great suspense and thrill. I found it quite realistic and the plot developed really well, and the way the conflict resolves is quite human and real.

The characters are also fantastic! Rod and Sally made a great duo and the rest of the characters are also pretty nice. Or at least they worked the way they're supposed to, some are really annoying, but its only human nature.

I would love to lose my memory and read it again, its that good

While the premise and conceit of the book is interesting in a mid-70s sci-fi way, it is absolutely ruined by racist, sexist and xenophobic themes. Which I cannot believe is not a more discussed aspect of this book.

The entire Navy is populated only with young, white, straight men. Old people are too frail. Women aren't in the military. Any person of any non-white color flat out just don't appear in the book at all. All of them are of European descent. All of them, somehow a thousand years in the future, practice the same version of Christianity as we know it today.

There is one woman human character. One. And she is only on the ship by accident. Any reference to her nudity (not even sex, just normal nudity) is through a weird chaste lens of embarrassment. And, as a real kicker, "rape" is used as casual replacement for "to hell with". As in "Rape the rulebook, this is a crisis." If it had been a book instead of my Kindle, I would have thrown it across the room.

The aliens ("Moties", already starting out on a derogatory term that sticks) have genetically stratified their races into a caste system of defined, locked roles. Not only does this allow the writers to conveniently avoid any kind of individual complexity and paint entire planets with the subtlety of a kindergarten crayon set, but sets up "defensible" stereotypes, classism and straight racism. The silent servant workers are Browns. The "communicators" are brown-and-whites. But the leaders and decision-makers are, you guessed it, Whites. The abject racism is absolute fetish for white power nationalists. Brown people as silent, unquestioning servants. Just perfect.

All of that, plus the colonialist, capitalist, imperialist and xenophobic attitudes of the humans is just flat-out depressing because it's exactly how invading Europeans treated literally every country and culture they ever invaded.

This book was written in 1974 but carries the biases and outlooks of 1934. Its mildly interesting plot doesn't come close to saving this shit.

Avoid at all costs unless you're an incel Nazi.

I have looked for and wanted to read this book ever since reading about it in an introduction to one of Niven's short story books. He mentioned it as one of his favorite books he'd written, which seemed to me to be a pretty good endorsement. So when I was once again scanning the shelves as I was browsing a bookstore, I was excited to see it - one battered old copy - sitting up there on the Powell's shelf. I snatched it, and soon thereafter read it on a trip to the east coast.



As expected, the book was excellent. A wonderful collaboration between [a:Jerry Pournelle|39099|Jerry Pournelle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1216417671p2/39099.jpg] and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg], it is everything good sci-fi should be: clever, suspenseful, insightful. The moties serve as both a foil for ourselves, and a backdrop to test what we as a society will do in extreme situations. It's also full of all kinds of great sci-fi gadgetry, physics that is well-balanced and integrated into the story. The aliens are fascinating creatures, and their development and characteristics explore the what-ifs about what could have happened if our own evolutionary ancestors took a different path, veered left instead of right. And behind all that, there's a quick, suspenseful, well-written plot that ushers you through everything the book encompasses.

I have looked for and wanted to read this book ever since reading about it in an introduction to one of Niven's short story books. He mentioned it as one of his favorite books he'd written, which seemed to me to be a pretty good endorsement. So when I was once again scanning the shelves as I was browsing a bookstore, I was excited to see it - one battered old copy - sitting up there on the Powell's shelf. I snatched it, and soon thereafter read it on a trip to the east coast.



As expected, the book was excellent. A wonderful collaboration between [a:Jerry Pournelle|39099|Jerry Pournelle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1216417671p2/39099.jpg] and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg], it is everything good sci-fi should be: clever, suspenseful, insightful. The moties serve as both a foil for ourselves, and a backdrop to test what we as a society will do in extreme situations. It's also full of all kinds of great sci-fi gadgetry, physics that is well-balanced and integrated into the story. The aliens are fascinating creatures, and their development and characteristics explore the what-ifs about what could have happened if our own evolutionary ancestors took a different path, veered left instead of right. And behind all that, there's a quick, suspenseful, well-written plot that ushers you through everything the book encompasses.

I have looked for and wanted to read this book ever since reading about it in an introduction to one of Niven's short story books. He mentioned it as one of his favorite books he'd written, which seemed to me to be a pretty good endorsement. So when I was once again scanning the shelves as I was browsing a bookstore, I was excited to see it - one battered old copy - sitting up there on the Powell's shelf. I snatched it, and soon thereafter read it on a trip to the east coast.



As expected, the book was excellent. A wonderful collaboration between [a:Jerry Pournelle|39099|Jerry Pournelle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1216417671p2/39099.jpg] and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg], it is everything good sci-fi should be: clever, suspenseful, insightful. The moties serve as both a foil for ourselves, and a backdrop to test what we as a society will do in extreme situations. It's also full of all kinds of great sci-fi gadgetry, physics that is well-balanced and integrated into the story. The aliens are fascinating creatures, and their development and characteristics explore the what-ifs about what could have happened if our own evolutionary ancestors took a different path, veered left instead of right. And behind all that, there's a quick, suspenseful, well-written plot that ushers you through everything the book encompasses.

This book is considered a science fiction classic, but somehow I'd never read it; now corrected! It was written in 1972 but didn't feel particularly dated. I found it a bit slow going at times; the middle really grabbed me but the start and end were a bit dense. However, it was still a brilliantly told imagining of humanity's future first contact with a very alien race. It's told mainly from the perspective of the humans, but with intervals where you get to see what the aliens are thinking also.

I felt as if the authors had really questioned every single aspect of the meeting, and as a result nothing was just assumed, or stereotyped, and the difficult decisions faced by both races were addressed face on and in very realistic detail. Some of the choices the authors made interested me too - why for example did they decide that humanity of the future would be an imperial empire, and a very misogynistic one at that? I've read some other books by these authors and that's not a standard scenario they assume so I'm curious why they decided on it for this setting.

Definitely hard science fiction, and not a light quick read, but very thought-provoking.