The Mote in God's Eye

By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

Narrated by: L J Ganser

Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Writing separately, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are responsible for a number of science fiction classics, such as the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ringworld, Debt of Honor, and The Integral Trees. Together they have written the critically acclaimed best-sellers Inferno, Footfall, and The Legacy of Heorot, among others.

The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".

©1991 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• All-Time Best Science Fiction Novels (Locus Magazine)

Great story!

This is a great story and is well performed. Like others have said , there are a lot of characters to keep track of at the beginning, but by the time I was a few hours in, everything connected and I really enjoyed the ride. This is one that I will listen to again.

Fantastic story telling

Excellent plot and character development, an interesting perspective as a period piece and on the change on gender in society.

w[wonderful

love every minute. niven is a genius. reader is awesome. sequel is terrific too. the g r ippimg hand

Best science fiction novel I have ever read.

Read it, listen to it. It is so wonderful. I have read it several times and now I listened to it once. Love it.

Great

Good story, the middle is quite captivating but seems to lose that appeal towards the end.
There’s also a lot of science babble in the beginning that, I suppose, is just there to sound interesting and doesn’t really serve any purpose in the story.
Quite good overall.

solid first contact story

Solid first contact story, interesting but not overly bizarre aliens, great cast and good narration.

Some dated tropes and ideas I've seen done better, but given the books age it gets a pass.

Enjoyable read if a little long.

Narrator does matter....

I read the book many years ago and loved it. It is dated, but if you like shows like "Firefly", it won't bother you too much. The science isn't really dated...just the cultural norms. The story is interesting, as are the aliens. As others have mentioned the narrator is annoying. He would have been okay for 1 character, but having him read all the parts just didn't work. It is worth listening to.

Beautifully Clever

This is a beautifully clever book. It is a worthwile spend of your time, but to avoid disappointment do not be too impatient at the outset.

I find Larry Niven slow going at first. I even get irritated by the care with which he sets the foundations of his proes, but then it hots up and you are transported to his world. A well thought out, clever, insightful and exciting place that is just around the corner. The world could be, or would be as he describes if we were only able to develop the technology to travel from star to star.

This is an excellent book. I recommend it strongly but prescribe you give the start a chance, you will be richly rewarded.

His book Ringworld is similar. It starts out slow and thereafter the only disappointment is that it ends.

Rgds

Paul Levy

A classic, but shows signs of age.

Definitely a first-contact story with considerable depth. But at the same time the human perspective was a little hard to latch onto, and the overall story was a little dry. But it had moments.

The narration was okay, but this book needed someone more expressive to bring the material life. Or maybe it was the material itself, I don't think I've heard this narrator elsewhere, so it's hard to judge.

Overall: worth the listen just for the alien culture.

Leave me dry.

These "old/classic" sci-fi writers seem to get bored with their works and leave me swinging in the breeze. I find this in the writings of Heinlein, and Asimov and now Niven. The stories start out great, and then it's like... THE END.

What just happened?