: The Mote in God’s Eye
Authors: Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
This is one of those classic science fiction stories I’d somehow never managed to read. I am now wondering why it is so famous. It’s not a bad book or anything, but it is slow-moving and not a lot happens. None of the characters are very interesting — they are all stereotypical stick figures — and the story seems like it should be more interesting than it is.
The plot involves first contact with an alien race. While it has a solid-sounding scientific base and some unusual (and cool) ideas, there are many aspects I found too convenient. For instance, one of my pet peeves is how every alien race we encounter in movies and TV shows is humanoid — and most of those races think too much like humans. This sort of does the same thing. Here the aliens are physically somewhat different, but they have arms and eyes and there’s much talk about DNA and other physiological aspects that makes them seem too much like us. I did like that the aliens have a very different culture from us — aspects of which play a key part in the plot — but that culture is not conveyed very well. We learn about it bits and pieces over a long period of time which dilutes a lot of what makes that interesting. And the “dramatic” conclusion, where we learn the real motivations of the aliens, comes out of left field, isn’t very well explained, and feels awkward.
The bottom line is that while I found much of this intriguing and inspiring, the book itself didn’t deliver on that inspiration. The whole idea of “first contact” is fascinating, but it could be done better than this.
Topic: [/book] |
