#133 in Classics
The Mote in God's Eye
- 560
- Pages
- about 10 h
- Reading time
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
“The Mote in God’s Eye” is first-contact science fiction that takes the strangeness of an alien civilisation seriously. The aliens strike some readers as truly unlike humanity, and the encounter as plausible. A few find the opening third slow and nearly gave up before the book took hold; others criticise a disorderly ending or the religious cast of its human empire. Best for those who prefer ideas to firepower.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Mote in God's Eye is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species. The title of the novel is a reference to the Biblical "The Mote and the Beam" parable and is the nickname of a star. The Mote in God's Eye was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards in 1975.
Reading order · CoDominium
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 415 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 74% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.1 | 48 | 12% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 16 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 7.8 | 351 | 85% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Mote in God's Eye?
It has 560 pages — longer than 73% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.8 and 7.9, closest to this book.
