The Gripping Hand

By: Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read". The San Francisco Chronicle declared that "as science fiction, The Mote in God's Eye is one of the most important novels ever published". Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award-winning authors of such best sellers as Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot, return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler.

There, 25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered - a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function: Master, Mediator, Engineer, Warrior. Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For the Moties must breed - or die. And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.

©1993 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

How can the same reader mispronounce this word?!

"Fyunch(click)" The "click" part is pronounced with a sound made by pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth and then suddenly moving it downward.

The same guy read book 1 and pronounced it correctly but in book 2 he literally says the word "click" instead of making the sound. Yeah, it's a big deal along with his very low range of having any distinction between characters' voices.

Yeah, it's a big deal.

A very good sequel, but does not to the original.

A quick "read" and well done follow-up to the ground breaking "Mote in God's Eye".
25 years after it was written it stands the test of time well, even though its universe does show its age.

Very enjoyable listen,

If you liked Mote in God's Eye and wanted more storyline then this is the book for you. It starts off a bit slow but the ending is well worth it.

Ho Hum

This book was not as interesting as the first the only reason I finished it was to find out the ending and I hate to stop in the middle of something and not finish. Book 1 was much better.

Uninspired

I generally enjoy Niven/Pournelle books (Niven more so) ... but this one was rather uninspired. Nothing new was introduced, the characters weren't so interesting, there was no internal conflicts ... just recycled stuff to get the page count up so they could get paid.

Not as good as The Mote In God’s Eye

The first book was a classic. This was good but it had a lot to live up to. It’s worth a listen but I wouldn’t rush out to get it.

good book, poor production

This is a fascinating, classic book series. I enjoyed the first book, and this was a good follow-up. However, this was a poor audiobook production. It's not that the narrator isn't good; he's been great in other audiobooks. But somehow this book is tough to pull off by a single actor. Transitions between speakers are quick, not well delineated, so having a single voice actor do them all successfully is not easy. It was tough following who was speaking when. What's more, transitions across sections within a chapter were too quick, making it very hard to understand that we've changed setting and characters, resulting in a very confusing audiobook.

It's a pity that this fun book received such a subpar treatment.

Another good listen from Pournelle and Niven

IF YOU HAVE NOT LISTENED TO THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE FIRST, DON'T GET THE GRIPPING HAND!! YOU WILL BE THOROUGHLY LOST!!

I had some credits to burn and so decided I wanted to listen to one of the classic series from science fiction. With that in mind, I turned to the Mote in God's Eye and then The Gripping Hand.

After listening to the fantastic words and performance of Mote, I wondered how they could top it off in The Gripping Hand.

While being a good effort, it wasn't quite up to the same level as Mote; though still enjoyable.

First off, the first three hours, or so, seemed to drag on forever. And they have very little, if anything, to do with the rest of the book. Were they tacked on for a higher page count? I don't know. All I know is that I kept waiting for a big tie-in, and it took forever before it finally happened.

The ending was abrupt. I would have rather they lopped some of the beginning off and added a Chapter 29 before the Epilogue. The Epilogue all of a sudden appears and ties the end up. However, it left me scratching me head a little.

Once again, LJ Ganser gave a stellar performance. While I haven't listened to a ton of audiobooks, I think I can say he's my favorite reader so far. His ability to switch accents when switching characters at the drop of a hat is uncanny. He even is able to change his delivery of female characters, though it's not as obvious in The Gripping Hand than it was in Mote. Additionally, it's not over the top, like some readers try.

I'm just disappointed it ended. The third book in the trilogy, written by Pournelle's daughter, takes place on the rim of the empire, and its description leads me to believe has very little to do with the Moties, just as King David's Spaceship didn't either.

Hopefully, we'll get another one from Pournelle and Niven, though they're hard at work on the sequel to Lucifer's Comet right now.

Good follow-on to Mote in God's Eye

Would you listen to The Gripping Hand again? Why?

Simply put, if you read and like The Mote in God's Eye, you'll want to read this. If you haven't read Mote in God's Eye, you need to read that first. This is a fair follow-on to the original story, not as original (it would be difficult to be), but a good what-would-come-next type of story.

Any additional comments?

My only. Complaint. Is that the writing style... is more fragmented, than that of Mote. Clearly one author had a larger part in the first book, and the other this one. I preferred the style of Mote, as this one had a lot of choppy scenes and sentence, enough to become mildly distracting. But the quality of the story is excellent enough and does more than compensate for that weakness.

Great story/ shakey performance

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narrator seriously needs to work on emphasis in the phrasing of sentences. Quite obvious mistakes and they change the meaning of the script. Needs to read for understanding of the dialog.

Any additional comments?

Great story, narrator has decent character definition. Wish he understood what was being read.