The mote in God's eye

The Mote in God's Eye (original title in English: The Mote in God's Eye ) is a novel science fiction written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and published in November 1974 by Simon & Schuster. It was first published in Spanish in 1976 by the Dronte publishing house. The story is set in the far future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and recounts the first contact between humanity and an alien species. The title of the novel is a pun on the Biblical parable of "the straw and the beam" and in the novel it is the nickname given to a star. The novel was a finalist for the Hugo, Nébula, and Locus awards in 1975. In 1993, a sequel with a Spanish title of The Third Arm was published.

Context

Authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle decided to join forces to write the definitive first contact novel. By the authors' own account, the novel took three years to make. Niven mentions that Robert A. Heinlein he recommended a number of changes to the novel, wanting it to meet the expectations that had been generated, and even revised the final draft of the work. Both books in the series are notable for significant and detailed construction work. of the universe, and this process was extensively documented in the article Building The Mote in God's Eye, which Pournelle published with the collaboration of Niven in the January 1976 issue of Galaxy, within his monthly column “A Step Farther Out”.

Settings

The action takes place in a very distant future where humanity has colonized a large number of planets, which are organized under a feudal regime. Humanity has two great inventions: the Alderson drive, a device that allows a spacecraft to jump from one point to another in space instantly, but limited to certain points given by the mass of nearby stars or planets; and the Langston field, a force field capable of absorbing energy and protecting a ship or a city while not overloaded.

Plot

The book, which begins with a detailed chronology of what has happened up to the year in which the narrated events take place, describes the story of the first encounter of the Imperium of Man with an alien species, much older than humanity but that it has not been able to progress due to being isolated in its planetary system because the only available jump point in it is going to hit the interior of a red giant star. By not possessing the technology of the Langston Field, the aliens have been retarded in their space exploration. Humans intercept an alien ship powered by a solar sail that has taken 190 years to traverse the distance between the stars at sublight speed.

Now, after the first contact with humanity, the aliens are willing to give anything in exchange for the Alderson Drive technology, but this will raise the question for the protagonists of what implications it will bring to allow this new species to disperse throughout the galaxy.

Characters

• Commander Roderick "Rod" Blaine: A Navy officer, aristocrat, commander of an imperial ship.
• Lady Sandra "Sally" Bright Fowler: An anthropologist and niece of an imperial senator.
• His Excellency Horace Hussein Chamoun al Shamlan Bury: Magnate, President of the Board of Imperial Autonetics, and influential member of the Imperial Association of Traders.
• Nabil: Servant of Bury.

Reception

Robert A. Heinlein, who was involved in one of the draft reviews, called the work the "best first contact novel between humans and intelligent non-human extraterrestrials I have ever seen, and possibly the most best science fiction novel I've ever read'. The work was a finalist in 1975 for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and came in second for the Locus Award for Best Novel that same year. He also participated in the edition of the Nebula award for the best novel of 1975 ―despite having been nominally published in 1974―, again managing to reach a finalist position.