The Mote in God's Eye
Ratings138
Average rating3.8
3 1/2 stars
http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2009/06/review-of-mote-in-gods-eye.html
I did not like either the story or the writing style. Too much military jargon and sci-fi talk relating to spaceships and interstellar travel that has put me off continuing to read the book.
The plot seemed to revolve around the first contact of mankind with alien life. There was this spaceship that came out of an area in space known of god's face. The area received this name because due to the way some astral objects are positioned, when viewed from a distance, it looks lake a face.
This unknown spaceship attacked the spaceship of the protagonist for no apparent reason. He retaliates and succeeds in killing the aggressor. When the remainings of the spaceship are collected, they found out the body of the pilot is of an anatomy completely different from humans.
After Ringworld, I liked Nivens Sci-fi concepts, but not so much his characters. The same could be said for Mote, which lacks any strong women characters, but makes up for it with a gripping tale of first contact. After seeing this one on NPRs top 100 SciFi list, and always being interested in first encounters, I knew I had to check this out. The story kept me interested – keeping things a mystery at times, and at other times giving you the information and watching to see if the correct decisions were made. I wouldn't recommend this one for everyone, but if you like entertaining sci fi and an interesting alien race, it's worth a read.
In short: achingly poor writing sustaining a sometimes exciting plot. However the Moties (despite being utterly humanoid, which, for a work of speculative fiction should really be considered a faux pas, or at least a tut-tut) were often a joy to listen to chatter, especially the three ambassadors at the draw of the novel, who provided more insight into the Motie psyche than the however-many-snippets of dialogue that came before. Definitely a side-eye thrown at the expressive interjectional use of “rape” though.
Interesting but not entertaining enough for the some of the book. I'm glad I read this book but at times it felt like more of a theoretical essay instead of a novel.
One of the top 10 SF books of all time (in my not so humble opinion). Niven and Pournelle were a great team.
Supposedly a masterpiece but I thought it overlong and mostly dull. The aliens were remarkably human - their planet has streets, cars, museums and zoos. They also seem to be hugely technologically advanced and yet incapable of solving their breeding problems. Not sure what it is that people are finding so exciting about it.
My favourite quote is more a reflection of when this book was written than of the book itself:
“Carrying a child doesn't seem to slow a Motie down,” Renner observed.
Renner's Motie said, “No, of course not. Why should it?”
Sally Fowler took up the task. She tried carefully to explain just how useless pregnant human females were.
This book is a classic and a masterpiece of sf, because it tells a fascinating story that makes compulsive reading all the way through, and because the alien species encountered in it is so well conceived and imagined.
However, it's not flawless. It's set in the 31st century, in Pournelle's future history, in which the Second Empire of Man is spread across “more than two hundred worlds”, ruled by an Emperor and an aristocracy apparently copied from 19th century Britain, with a quite strong Christian Church. Humanity has the Alderson hyperspace drive, permitting instant travel between solar systems, and its spaceships are protected by the Langston Field, but the rest of its technology would seem familiar enough to people of the late 20th century.
Characterization is generally rather sketchy, and some of the characters are stereotypes; however, the characters are so many and so varied, and the story so busy, that I don't think there would be time for intimate character studies, even if the authors had the inclination or the ability for that kind of thing. Some of Niven's books have characters who all seem much the same, but here he made more of an effort, and I suspect the stereotypes came from Pournelle. There's even a conspicuously Scottish Chief Engineer, in a nod to Star Trek.
Being more of a fan of Niven than Pournelle, I'd generally attribute the best parts of the book to Niven; in particular the aliens, which were his speciality. However, I don't think he could have written it by himself, so Pournelle's contribution must be credited as useful. This book was, of course, so successful that they wrote a number of other books together; though I think none of them turned out so well.
Despite the anachronistic feel of Pournelle's Second Empire and his use of stereotypical characters, overall this is one of my favourite books and a classic treatment of first contact with intelligent aliens. A particular feature of these aliens is that they're more intelligent than humans, which is hard for a merely human author to depict.
The aliens go in for complete equality of the sexes, and are in fact capable of changing their sex; but human society is pseudo-Victorian and patriarchal. This is the story of a military expedition, so it's all male, except for one woman who happens to be carried along by accident. Some readers regard this as a defect, which I suppose it is if you particularly want to read about women. However, in this case I think that making 50% of the humans female would tend to distract from the story without adding anything useful to it. It's a story about first contact with aliens; the humans are just there to represent humans, their sex is irrelevant. It could equally well have been written with them all female, although I imagine that Pournelle at least would have refused to do so.
Quite near the end of the story, we find that Motie Mediators are infertile, unable to reproduce; they're a cross between Motie Whites (Masters) and Browns (Engineers). I find this hard to believe, because the Mediators are inherently talented experts in language, communication, and negotiation; but where do they get those genes from? Masters are not particularly good communicators, and Engineers are particularly bad communicators.
The romance between Rod and Sally is rather perfunctory. They don't see much of each other during the story, and then suddenly they're getting married. It's plausible enough from Rod's point of view: she's the only woman on his ship, she's attractive, and her family background makes her a suitable wife for him. From Sally's point of view, he's mostly preoccupied with his job whenever she's with him; it's not clear what she sees in him; and she says herself during the story that she feels no need to rush into marriage at her age. So why does she suddenly change her mind and rush into marriage? Love is a mystery, I suppose; but that's an excuse any author can resort to.
After Ringworld, I liked Nivens Sci-fi concepts, but not so much his characters. The same could be said for Mote, which lacks any strong women characters, but makes up for it with a gripping tale of first contact. After seeing this one on NPRs top 100 SciFi list, and always being interested in first encounters, I knew I had to check this out. The story kept me interested – keeping things a mystery at times, and at other times giving you the information and watching to see if the correct decisions were made. I wouldn't recommend this one for everyone, but if you like entertaining sci fi and an interesting alien race, it's worth a read.
I don't understand why this book is so loved. Maybe my expectations were too high. It's been a few months since I read this book and I cant remember a single characters name. And I can only vaguely remember most of the plot. I guess that's the problem with this book. Everything about it is forgettable except for the feeling of ‘meh' I had the entire time reading it.
While I enjoyed the story in Mote, and generally enjoyed the characters and the political considerations, I really had a hard time getting through this one. It was really slow in areas. A lot of areas. I can understand why some consider this one of the best SF books ever, but it's not one of those books that makes you lose sleep because you want to just get through this chapter. And then the next.
Hmm. Drags in places, but a good story overall, with interesting twists and turns in perspective.
Oddly enough, the way the human empire is portrayed in this docked it a few points. They were not well developed or believable.
The book has an interesting quandary that is posed by the alien society, but in the end I thought the book was just alright.
Stopped at 21%.
Despite the interesting premise, the story failed to engage me, mainly because of the endless exposition which fails to advance the plot at what would be a comfortable pace for my tastes.
Really good first half, but then sort of falls apart in the second half. The time spent in the Mote system is full of interesting characters and intriguing mysteries about how the aliens work, but once they return to the empire, the characters seems to get flatter and all the mysteries have been explain, so you're just reading to to see how it ends. I would have liked a bit more of a cliffhanger ending, where they're leaving the system with the Motie Ambassadors in tow. It would have fit the tone of the book a bit better