The Mote in God's Eye Mass Market Paperback – March 1, 1991

Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's what Robert Heinlein said about it. It's the story of mankind's first contact with intelligent aliens, and being set over 1,000 years in the future human civilization and culture have changed drastically. There's a human interstellar empire led by an emperor - no, not an evil one as in Star Wars, and human mores are very similar to the Victorian era. Just the future human culture that Niven and Pournelle have created would probably be enough to carry a great story. But now you add the very alien Moties, whose civilization and culture are very different, bring them together with humans, and you get something astonishingly original and engrossing. Long as this book is, it doesn't wear thin for a moment. What you usually find with Sci-Fi is that books are either science-driven, alternate culture-driven, or character-driven. This book has it all--fascinating technologies and societies, plus literally dozens of interesting, well-developed characters. It may not be the best sci-fi book you've ever read, but it will probably make your top 10 list, maybe even top 5. A great, highly original story by two of the best writers in the field.

Let's get "the bad" out of the way first. The Kindle version has some odd formatting issues (weird line breaks and such). If you want a book with character studies, this ain't what you're looking for, move along. The characterization of women can be off-putting, but I'll address that below...

Now, for "the awesome" because this book is full of awesome! First, you have a Human Empire 2.0 that is being built and consolidated back to Human Empire 1.0 size, but is less technologically advanced as the prior Empire. Political stuff, outer systems uprisings, civil wars in systems, all of that jazz. Into this already teoubled stew an alien probe ship comes (literally) sailing in. Alien probe's point of origin is determined, and due to circumstances a less-than-ideal set of people get to go and investigate the alien world. Kind of normal SF so far.

Then the authors take us to the Mote and the aloens that launched the probe. An alien culture that is well and truly alien. the humans don't know enough about the culture to even realize what questions they should be asking. They're smart enough to cobble together some somewhat disturbing conclusions based on observations, but the truth behind those observations is not fully appreciated until they leave. None of the characters are able to put the whole picture together alone, which is a nice change from the "Mary Sue" type character you usually find in SF.

The attitudes towards the only female on the ship are very mich a reflection if the 1974 publication date, but the authors make those attitudes believable based on the situation the Human Empire is in and the culture in which it functions. I found the attitudes startingly backwards, but contextually appropriate.

I first read this book when I was 11, reread it when I was 22, and again at the age of 32. At each reading I found new facets to engage me, and remembered the bits that hooked me when I was younger. This book hots every single one of my markers for a true literary classic: accessable to most age ranges, the aliens are completely alien (with juuust enough human-relatable attributes to mess with the humans), it is eminantly re-readable, and it casts light on areas of human thought and behavior that could use some (or a lot) of correction. It makes the reader question humanity's attitudes towards wars, differing cultures, and how to treat each other.

I read "Lucifer's Hammer" when I was a kid. I grew up the youngest in a household of avid readers and so was a pretty precocious reader, picking up whatever books my parents and older siblings brought into the house for their own reading. So I was pretty young when I read "Hammer." I'm sure I missed a lot of its subtleties because of my age. But I do remember I liked it a lot. It seemed my dad must have had an interest in apocalyptic fiction, because I remember reading a few of those and found them fascinating. Stephen King's "The Stand" held the top honor of favorite book until "The World According To Garp" came along.

Anyway, when browsing some group messages on Goodreads I first saw mention of "Mote" and, recognizing the authors names from "Hammer," decided to take a look. The rather legendary recommendation from Robert Heinlein kind of sealed the deal.

During the reading of the book, I read more people's thoughts on it, and found everything from best ever to cheesy and outdated. The reviews that called it outdated annoyed me more than deterred me. The book was written in the early 1970s, so allowances must be made. Do you hold it against Moby Dick that they don't have iPhones? So, yeah, the book is dated. Big deal. The message contained in it far outweighs the drawbacks. The story takes place about a thousand years from now, and it frequently mentions the characters using their "pocket computers." In 1972 or so, the authors prognosticated this as being cutting edge tech. I found this amusing, as a mere 40 or so years after its publication, I was reading it on MY "pocket computer," a Kindle Fire. Some reviewers found it sexist that there was only one female human character, and she was very outdated due to her beliefs (the "good girls don't need birth control" comment was often cited). Well, in the early 1970s, lots of women felt that way, especially daughters of senators, which she was. The only gripe from other readers that I agreed with fully was the Scottish guy, who was a carbon copy of Scotty from "Star Trek," complete with corny accent and nearly identical dialog ("I kenna DO it, Captain!") It seemed a stretch since the characters from other nationalities, the Russians for example, didn't have attempts made to imitate their accents.

So much for the negatives. In my opinion the pros of this book so far outweigh the cons there's really almost no reason to bother, but I want to be fair.

So the basic story, and I don't want to give too much away (read: MINOR SPOILER ALERT), is about the human empire's, which is intergalactic at this point, first contact with an intelligent life form. I found the storytelling of this book masterful. The authors tell a story about how amazing First Contact might be. But the authors plant very tiny seeds, which germinate slowly while you read, that all might not be as well as it seems. It just have me creepy chills as I read, that things rarely go so well without SOMETHING going wrong. It was almost a "Star Trek" meets "Jurassic Park" scenario. If that seems an out-there analogy, consider that most of Michael Crichton's books were about mankind's constant arrogant blunders into disaster by repeatedly failing to consider all possible outcomes and assuming that we can control every aspect of our environments. That's all I'll say on the matter of the storyline.

So, overall impression is that it is worth the read both for the story itself, which is fascinating, and especially for the way the tale is told. It's a well-crafted book.

Some of the best writing about how realistic space travel would be, based on Newtonian physics. Yes, it has FTL travel but it plays a very small part in terms of the way the ships and people have to deal with inter jump-point travel.

Anyone who likes good science fiction will enjoy this book but it has a significant amount of thinking and analysis on interpersonal and interspecies communication.

It really is a must read, ranks up there with Ender's Game