Classic Science Fiction Book review: "The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven and Pournelle
As you can read in the top left of the image from the cover of the original; paperback edition, the late Robert Heinlein, himself no mean writer of Science fiction, described this story as
"The best novel about human beings making first contact with intelligent but utterly nonhuman aliens I have ever seen, and possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read."
Heinlein was not exaggerating. this brilliant 1974 novel really is that good, and in the 52 years since it was published I don't believe that any other first contact novel has surpassed it, though there have been some other very good ones.
The early stages of the fictional universe in which this novel is set, Jerry Pournelle's "Future History" series, suffered rather badly from the late 20th and early 21st centuries developing in a way which has borne very little resemblance to the one in the books, but this doesn't really matter to this story as it is set a thousand years in the future, beginning in 3017 AD, so at that distance and there is plenty of time which would allow something like the Second Empire in the story to develop.
Everything in the novel: the assumed spaceflight technology, the societies both of the human protagonists and the aliens they encounter, the biology of the aliens and how it drives their completely non-human attitudes and society - is incredibly well through through and very clearly and accessibly explained.
In particular, one of the things which makes this story so compelling is the care with which the backstory was constructed: the human characters of "The Mote in God's Eye" are part of the Second Empire because the first human star empire had been almost entirely destroyed a few centuries ago in a civil war against genetically engineered secessionists known as the "Sauron Supermen" who looked like Greek Gods, thought like battle computers and had the ethics of the Waffen SS.
The Second Empire, proclaimed a century before the time of the book, still hasn't quite reached the technological level of the first one and has relics from that former age they can't yet reproduce. It's ships, soldiers and diplomats are now building back, making contact with former First Empire worlds lost to dark ages for centuries and mostly glad to rejoin. The government and navy of the Second Empire are deeply scarred by the experience of the "Secession wars" and are absolutely determined not to allow any star system to start such a rebellion or secession ever again. Any attempt at rebellion or secession will be put down at the minimum cost in lives but it WILL be put down. This determination strongly colours the human characters' interactions with the "Motie" aliens.
At the start of the novel Rod Blaine, the hero and one of the main viewpoint characters of the book, has just been given command of the Battlecruiser "MacArthur" (you can see a cover illustrator's idea of what MacArthur might look like on the back page of the book cover illustration, bottom left) after she took part in crushing one such minor rebellion. He's asked to convey two passengers back to the imperial capital at Sparta, both of whom will become key players in the story.
The ships of the Second Empire and previous human civilisations travel between stars almost instantaneously along "Alderson tramlines" which are something similar to what most modern SF books and TV shows call "wormholes."
So when Macarthur arrives in the New Caledonia system on route to the capital, Rod is astonished to be ordered to make all speed to intercept an unknown object entering the system in normal space.
Someone has built a spacecraft powered by a light sail and spent well over a century travelling the distance of lightyears from a nearby star ...
This is a truly great novel which has stood the test of time, and I recommend it.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo
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