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Firstly, I would point out that this book is by Larry Niven /and/ Jerry Pournelle. I'm not familiar with Pournelle's solo work, but Niven's influence throughout the book is pretty obvious.

I picked up my copy of Mote in God's Eye many years ago, after being very impressed with Larry Niven's Ringworld and other Known Space stories. Mote' is set in a completely different universe, but one just as interesting to immerse yourself in.

The setting is in the far future, when Mankind has spread out throughout the stars in a galactic empire, which subsequently collapses on itself, and the various colony worlds are left isolated. Of late, a new empire has emerged, and is slowly reincorporating the worlds back into itself. Much of the technology from the first empire is irretrievably lost, but Man is slowly coming back into the ascendant.

Until a naval vessel encounters a probe travelling slower than light, from a distant, unexplored system, a probe which turns out to be non-human. The passengers onboard the probe are dead, but their odd physical makeup obviously shows that they not even slightly related to human beings.

The mainstay of the book deals with the expedition to the originating system, the Mote of the title, and is as classic an example of humanity's first contact with an alien species as you could find in the scifi genre. There are shades of Murray Leinster's First Contact', where both species wish to trust the other, but the stakes are far too high for them to do so unconditionally.

A first contact story wouldn't work terribly well if the aliens turned out to be of standard Star Trek fare, i.e. actors in futuristic costumes and minor facial prosthetics, but this is where Niven (and Pournelle) excel, in creating a very believable alien species and society, and delve deeply into it's sociology, sexuality, history and mindset.

I would recommend this book to any science fiction buff who hasn't come across it yet, as well as the equally enjoyable sequel (Entitled The Gripping Hand', or The Moat around Murcheson's Eye', depending on which side of the Atlantic you live). It's not /quite/ as enjoyable as say, Ringworld, but it's certainly pretty close.

Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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