Mote/Sparta Universe – Rosboch Book Reviews

September 19, 2011

The Prince – Jerry Pournelle & S.M. Stirling

This omnibus collects all the John Christian Falkenberg novels. It consists of:

Falkenberg’s Legion
Prince of Mercenaries
Go Tell the Spartans
Prince of Sparta

The story ranges from the fall of the CoDominium to the rise of Sparta and the First Empire of Man that replaces it. However the macro story takes a backseat to the battles.

This is solid military SciFi. However, the fact that the first two novels are in fact lashups of earlier works set to a common frame gives the whole story a somewhat disjointed feel. The individual episodes are good though, and so are the characters. Interestingly, these novels are set in the same universe as The Mote in God’s Eye, but centuries earlier.

September 18, 2011September 19, 2011

King David’s Spaceship – Jerry Pournelle

Set in the same universe as The Prince and The Mote in God’s Eye, this is the story of a human colony planet that has regressed technology wise. It now needs to prove that it can put a ship into orbit in order to gain full membership in the Empire. Mildly entertaining, but not much more.

September 12, 2011September 19, 2011

The Gripping Hand – Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

While The Mote in God’s Eye is easily one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time, this sequel is barely worth slogging through. All the epic elements are lost, the few good ideas aren’t developed properly and it is just plain boring. Shame.

Note: In the United Kingdom it was released with the title “The Moat around Murcheson’s Eye”.

December 12, 2010September 19, 2011

The Mote in God’s Eye – Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Arguably the best story about first contact ever written. A ship comes careening into a human system. The pilot is dead, and strange, and it has apparently traveled for years at sublight speeds to get there. Even more strange is the fact that the ship hardly seems enough to sustain it. Two ships are dispatched to a star system hidden inside a nebula to contact the aliens. The society of “Moties” they find is very strange, and very fascinating, almost as fascinating as the creatures themselves. What they fail to realize is that the truth behind Motie society is deeply disturbing and will be a danger to all humanity.

It has aged very slightly due to the its being written in the seventies, but this hardly detracts from the magnificence of this novel. Manages to capture the essence of encountering the truly alien, and how humans have a hard time not placing their own values and prejudices on that which they do not understand.