The Mote in God's Eye (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

I have a confession: when I first read this book about 30 years ago I was so naive that I actually got to the final chapter still thinking the aliens were benevolent. Re-reading it last week I realise you are supposed to rumble their duplicity about half way through and the tension is about whether the humans will catch on in time. I think the plotting would be better if it had been written to support my initial reading. That could have been achieved by leaving out the alien-perspective passages and telling the Midshipman sub-plot in flashback at the end. Written this way, with a spectacular reveal right at the end, it would be a much more rewarding read.

This is probably the hardest story line in SF: first contact on the alien home-world. Not only do you have to imagine an entire alien civilisation, you also need a credible human future with star faring technology. This book manages the first and hardest part brilliantly but then lets itself down terribly by constructing the human civilisation from the most ridiculous assembly of sub Star Trek space-opera clichés this side of the Romulan home world! Somehow an alliance between the Soviet Union (excusable - this was written during the cold war) and the US has produced - the British Empire in space! Who would have expected that - an aristocracy! Just substitute planets for colonies, space ships for sea ships, magical faster-than-light "tramlines" for trade winds and job's done! It could have been amusing if they'd come up with a reasonable historical excuse for this, but they do not and you cannot help concluding it was just laziness. This ludicrous political landscape is populated by nationalistic clichés from old earth. I mean, there is not one but several Scots engineers with thick brogues (beam me up Scotty!); a paranoid and ruthless Russian admiral; a rebellious planet called "New Ireland" next to a loyal one called "New Scotland"; a corrupt and fabulously wealthy Arab merchant with a chip on his shoulder; a German character descended from a colony that recently started a war to impose its ideas of racial superiority. I could go on, but I risk someone trying to defend this tripe as homage!

However the inventiveness of the alien civilisation makes up for this in a big way. Believable and genuinely alien aliens are so rare in SF, and the "Moties" are really different. Their biological imperatives are alien, their history is alien, their physiology is alien, their reproductive mechanisms are alien, their politics is alien, their technology is alien, their motivations are alien, their architecture is alien, their situation in the universe is unique. And all of this is imagined from scratch rather than mix-and-matched from human templates, and fits together all of a piece. The best part is that they are not either good or evil, just driven by the imperatives of their situation and placing their own interests first. It is a truly amazing achievement, quite unique in my reading experience. On top of that the authors have come up with a really clever plot device to allow the reader to totally empathise with these aliens.

Because of the superb "Moties", I give this poorly written, badly plotted, cliche ridden book a full four stars. It is very tempting to conclude that the authorial team comprises a very imaginative, creative and brilliant scientist hitched to the worst kind of SF hack writer who wouldn't get published in any other genre.

The publishers blurb on the back of this novel compares it with Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land. In my view Dune is the best SF novel ever written so I had high expectations of this book. Initially I was very disappointed - stilted dialogue, wooden characters and a ponderously slow plot. then as I read on there was a steady improvement and by the end I was enjoying it. It also raises some fascinating issues around over-population and the resultant conflict. The motie world is well described, trapped in an endless cycle of over-population, war, civilisation collapse and eventual recovery. This is not Dune or Stranger in a strange land but it is a good read. 4 stars seems about right.

I first read this great novel some 20 years ago, and wanted to read it again, before tackling the sequel, "The Gripping Hand".
As always, I was curious to find out what the earlier me had found so fascinating, and so began reading with some trepidation.
I needn't have worried, however - it is still the greatest "First Contact" novel of all time, full of action, drama and scientific detail in equal measure, so innovative that it will constantly surprise even the most jaded "Speculative Fiction" palate. Why shouldn't ETs have population, social and environmental issues to deal with?
I've read many N + P novels and their obvious views on nuclear power and environmentalism are often at odds with my own; they seem to believe that nuclear fission will produce a glowing future and I fear that they are right. That said, the authors' decision to revisit their earlier successes (this, "The Burning Tower", "Escape from Hell"; what about the guys from "Lucifer's Hammer"? How are they making out?) is the right one.
A cracking good read, which fizzes along like a firework but with an infinitely more satisfying explosive pay-off.