The Mote in God's Eye
Science fiction classic about the rise, fall and subsequent rise of a civilization where the peak catastrophe is known as the "crazy eddy point". Introduces the concept of frictionless toilets that don't have any water in them but I suspect the authors didn't think it all the way through - I don't recall a negative air pressure that would keep odours in their rightfull place. Nevertheless a fascinating read. I haven't read this for donkeys years which is why I'm searching for an e-copy.
Stats for nerds
43recommend
133mentions
105people
2008–2026years
38% recommend61% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Blindsight by Peter Watts
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
Startide Rising by David Brin
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Semiosis by Sue Burke
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
Solaris by Stanisław Lem
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Translation State by Ann Leckie
Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
This is what sprang to mind as answering that sort of brief off the top of my head.
- Digital photography is one of those innovations that wonderfully ages pre-1990s science fiction where people of distant futures still fiddle with film chemicals.
The first book of David Brin’s Uplift series was written in 1980 and takes place on an antigravity spaceship carrying alien ambassadors that can penetrate deep into the Sun. Yet one of the major plot points is someone using the onboard darkroom to develop pictures that reveal something essential.
I’m hoping someone would make a new sci-fi movie with a vintage aesthetic that would intentionally emphasize and magnify this old-school analog awesomeness of galactic empires that seem to entirely lack integrated circuits. Apple TV’s “Silo” has a wonderful production design but it’s too claustrophobic to fulfill my wish.
“The Mote in God’s Eye” would be my pick if I could get any IP developed with this approach.
- This category of projects reminds me of how the aliens in Niven's "Mote in God's Eye" used to work, making instant bespoke things as they went along.
- Plus one for the The Mote in God's Eye reference.
- Increasingly I find that lists of sci-fi books aren't even what I call sci-fi at all. They may have some near-future or science-fantasy angle, but they seem to be more like classic literature, primarily about relationships. The science, such as it is, is frequently laughably bad, which completely turns me off.
There's nothing else quite like The Culture as far as I know. Maybe some of the following would scratch your itch, although you probably know most of them already.
* Xeelee Sequence, by Stephen Baxter.
* Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds.
* The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
* Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
* Eon, by Greg Bear
* A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
* The Golden Age, by John C. Wright.
- I've had enough of the Dune remakes, too. The world doesn't need more Planet That Went Ape remakes, either.
The Mote in God's Eye would make a fine miniseries.
