OF WHAT THE EYE SEES WE KNOW NOTHING...

A black whole in space.  And piercing through, a beam of ruby light brighter than a hundred moons.  Was it the eye on the face of God, or the blood-red sun of our first intergalactic visitors?

"Possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read"
- Robert Heinlein

"One of the most engrossing tales I've read in years"
- Theodore Sturgeon

"The best novel about human beings making first contact with intelligent but utterly nonhuman aliens I have ever seen and possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read."
- Robert A. Heinlein

The Mote in God's Eye
Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle

It is the far future and the human race has conquered the galaxy.  Or so it seems - until a strange ship appears out of nowhere carrying the emissary of a civilization at once bizarre and terrifying by Earth's standards.

Before Contact can be established, the emissary is accidentally killed.  But during the encounter a danger signal is transmitted across space, forcing mankind into a desperate race to find the visitor's world and try to convince its unimaginably alien inhabitants of our desire for peace and friendship.

The question is, will they listen?  Or will their culture permit nothing less than an all-out galactic war for supremacy?

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are the best-selling co-authors of Footfall, Lucifer's Hammer, Oath of Fealty, Inferno and, most recently, The Gripping Hand, the long and eagerly awaited sequel to The Mote in God's Eye.  Niven, a Hugo and Nebula Award winner, is also the author of the Ringworld series and many other novels.  Dr. Pournelle is the Chairman of the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy and is the author of numerous works of both science fact and fiction.

Jacket art by Lee MacLeod
Designed by Kwonk Wong

"Possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read."
- Robert Heinlein

"As science fiction, one of the most important novels ever published."
- San Francisco Chronicle

Writing separately, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are responsible for a number of science fiction classics, such as the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ringworld, Debt of Honor, and The Integral Trees.  Together they have written the critically acclaimed bestsellers Inferno, Footfall, and The Legacy of Herot, among others.

THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE is their acknowledged masterpiece, and epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends genre.