I can’t do it. I can’t finish the book. The Mote in God’s Eye has defeated me.
The Mote in God’s Eye was written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the pair that wrote Lucifer’s Hammer. When I read Lucifer’s Hammer previously, I loved it. Later, I read Ringworld by Niven alone, and found it to be alright, but nothing spectacular. I tried following it up with Ringworld Engineers, but I ended up abandoning that one altogether. It just didn’t do much for me. I figured that I wouldn’t care much for further works by Niven alone, but might find collaborations enjoyable.
So, when I saw The Mote in God’s Eye at the library, written by both authors, I had my hopes up. I imagined a book written in the style of Lucifer’s Hammer, but set far in the future. And, to an extent, that’s what the book is. Plot-wise, the book is about humans in the distant future (3016) making first contact with an alien species. The species they encounter, which they call Moties, are quite different from humans, both physiologically and psychologically. The goal of the human expedition is to figure out as much as possible about the aliens. You can read the rest of the plot summary here if you’d like.
I ended up reading 400 of the 460 pages of the book before I gave up on it. Why? I’m not really sure, truth be told. I can’t pinpoint what it was about the book that turned me off. The writing was alright; the plot was an interesting one. Similar to Ringworld, there were too many instances of “science chatter” for my tastes (usually regarding how many Gs they were travelling at, spin in the ship, etc.), but they weren’t earth shattering. Whatever was wrong, I just couldn’t really stay interested in the book. It felt like it was going to take me the next 5 years to finish up the last 60 pages. The closer I got to the ending, the slower it dragged.
I read the plot summary at Wikipedia in full to know how the book ended, and I don’t think I missed much. Too bad I didn’t give up on it sooner and just read the plot summary, heh.
Next on my to read list: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell.
Oh, by the way: even though I didn’t quite finish the book, considering I read 400 out of 460 pages, I am counting it towards my 52 books in 52 weeks thing. I spent too much time on it to not count it. ![]()








Recent comments