The Mote in God's Gripping Hand

The last time I read a science fiction book, I was climbing up Kilimanjaro and had few opportunities. It was The Wreck of the River of Stars, with a strong focus on slow-moving character development, that I probably would have put down if I were not scaling a mountain with frequent rests at high altitude. I was glad I read it, but it really lacked the excitement that I enjoyed in books by Heinlein, for instance.

Following several recommendations from technology geeks I find insightful (including Jerry Pournelle, one of the authors), I picked up The Mote in God's Eye and then quickly read its sequel, The Gripping Hand, by Larry Niven and Pournelle. Fascinating reading.

These are older sci-fi books, ones that expected the U.S. versus U.S.S.R. standoff would continue long into the future, when man left the Earth. The books are set long in the future, when interstellar travel is practical but humans have not yet discovered alien life. And boom, they do. The twist is that the aliens are much older, and better at just about everything, than humans but had not developed interstellar travel (the human invention of the interstellar drive was an accident - something I have no trouble believing).

I was captivated by the books but hard core science-focused science fiction readers should beware because these are not Stephen Baxter or Greg Bear books. The focus is more on sociology and a good story line. I'm not actually sure that Pournelle has any science credentials, though he clearly has a strong mind for technology. In listening to him speak, his understanding of how science works is quite weak.

I thought both books were well worth reading but I seem to remember daddYman being ho-hum about them, so take it for what it is worth. I had never considered such a plot line and it hooked me from the start (well, after 40-50 pages anyway... I always struggle to follow characters in the beginning of a book).