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The Mote in God's Eye

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The Mote in God's Eye

By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Narrated by: L J Ganser
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About this listen

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.
Fantasy Science Fiction

Critic Reviews

  • All-Time Best Science Fiction Novels (Locus Magazine)
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It’s as if this book was written by a privileged Englishman. Nobody in real life talks the way the characters in this novel. Other than that it’s an interesting story about first contact and how colonial space politics would play out.

Not bad.

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Very slow start but worth persisting through. Well thought out story with lots of detail. Highly recommended.

slow start

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The plot and premis of this narrative was quite good. Moved along quite well and kept me interested in spite of it's flaws. These flaws, IMO, come from the author's own beliefs I'm guessing. For instance someone who isn't well versed in scientific method may want to write the scientists as bumbling fools that leap to conclusions. This author then writes the religious character as the logical thinker. These two charator postitions are opposite to real life, so much so, it kept throwing me out of immersion. I kept thinking throughout the story "A scientist (Horvath) would not behave like this". Scientists are not bumbling fools. Otherwise I would have given it four and a half. Bit sexist as well.

Interesting

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took awhile to build up but once it had it got amazing. had some great concepts!

great storyline

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It starts a bit slow but once it gets going it’s captivating. Performances are really solid. Plot is interesting all the way to the end and not predictable. If you like sci-fi this is a must.

Really worthwhile

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