A black hole 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

Eighteen years in the making - here at last is the sequel to one of the most acclaimed science fiction novels of our time, THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE.

Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read."  The San Francisco Chronicle declared that "as science fiction, The Mote in God's Eye is one of the most important novels ever published."  Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award-winning authors of such bestsellers as Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler.

There, twenty-five years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system.  They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered - a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function.  Master.  Mediator.  Engineer.  Warrior.  Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate.  For the Moties must breed - or die.

And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.