Another classic from the authors of “Footfall” and “Lucifer’s Hammer.”
It’s a book about first contact with an alien race and the ensuing problems, but most of all it’s about the question whether there could be differences between humans and extraterrestrials that could turn out to be insurmountable…
Good book with some fairly interesting aliens that aren’t just humans-with-a-nose-ridge. I liked the alien society. It had a nice background that made sense with what we saw and still seemed very different than us.
Man, it’s been ages since I read this one. Yeah, interesting alien society. I’d love to revisit it with older eyes.
I love this book!
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who liked this book. I found the “hard scifi”-approach to the space travel scenes quite interesting.
Two very underrated books. A very good extension of Pournelle’s Falkenberg stories. Great combo team at their peak. Niven to detail the alien and alien society (his true strength) and Pournelle to outline the political, miltary, and social problems and conflicts caused by Empires and other ruling models.
Very layered story in a great universe created by Pournelle, but with an awesome alien species created by Niven. This is Pournelle and Niven at their absolute best. Great sense and motivations for the human characters by Pournelle, and an incredible understanding of an alien psyche from Niven. I highly recommend this one. Was going to campaign for Stranger in a Strange Land, but Mote isn’t dated like Stranger is.
I discovered the first book relatively late. In my last year of high school a bit over half a decade ago I was re-sorting through my father’s old Sci-Fi books and, surprisingly, ran into one I hadn’t noticed and read before. I took it with me on a backpacking trip, and if I recall I read it even the while walking into the campsite!
I’d have to say that high up on the things I love about the novel (and the second novel too, but I re-read the first one many times before even knowing that there WAS a sequel so I forget much of the second book; I should re-read that soon) is the portrayal of aliens as so much more alien than just humans-with-bumpy-foreheads (or even humans-with-tentacles or whatever), they were fundamentally different in every way and it was gripping (hur hur, bad pun) and thought provoking. The hive-mind of Wikipedia says it better than I could, though:
The other thing I really liked about it was the supposition of:
(1) There is interstellar travel, but
(2) In a system with sentient beings the necessary body happens to be unreachable, thus
(3) the civilizations rise and fall and rise and fall forever, never knowing
It takes a bit of a haunting note when you realize that, for all we know, that’s the situation humanity finds itself in when we look around at the real universe. FTL doesn’t seem possible, and thus our fate might look somewhat like the Moties, but in this case the thought experiment goes further and says, after being stuck like this (with exacerbating variables) for countless aeons yet then given a glimpse of a way out . . .
Edit: I forgot to mention that it’s also a First Contact book; how many bases does this work expertly cover? Maaaan I love this book.
I’ve only read an excerpt of Mote in God’s Eye from a Niven compendium I bought at a book sale here.
I bought the second (sequel!) book, The Gripping Hand, by rummaging through the insides of bookshelves. Hard scifi doesn’t too many fans out here. Haven’t read Gripping Hand. I’m waiting to read a full copy of Mote.
I liked the whole concept of the gravity jump points. Other authors such as Jack Campbell and Michael McCollum have used the same concept in their novels, too.
I’m actually listening to the unabridged audio-book version of this at the moment. It’s an old favorite of mine and the audio version is wonderfully well done.
Mostly hard sci-fi, with truly imaginative aliens. Like the Fith’p in Footfall, the Moties are spectacularly alien yet comprehensible. A logical example of what happens when a species actively seeks to guide its own evolution … and the perils that occur when that species runs into a younger, as yet undifferentiated species like ours.
Bravo.
Just giving it a bump so it’ll be in the vote. 
My husband has been after me to read this forever so i wouldn’t mind this being an option for Nov/Dec
Great book, I still try to find opportunities to use the following structure:
The Watchmakers pose a fascinating allegory about technological development too. No spoilers here, just that it’s another reason to check out an excellent read.
Keep your Langston fields cool, folks.
I just finished reading this earlier today. 
and somebody bumped it!
In some ways it’s very much of its time, but it was a good read.