The Mote in God's Eye

The Mote in God's Eye is a science fiction novel by the American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. It is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium setting, and its title comes from the Biblical phrase about the mote in a brother's eye. Its concern is first contact conducted by people under orders, with limited time and imperfect information.

A human warship is sent to a system where an alien signal has been detected and finds a species with no way out: the Moties cannot leave, because their population increases without control, and their history is a cycle of civilisations that grow, collapse and rebuild. The novel's interest lies in how difficult it is to understand another species well enough to negotiate with it.

Niven and Pournelle built the story around the biology they invented, so the aliens' behaviour follows from what they are rather than from a puzzle the crew has to solve, and the book became one of the best-known first-contact novels of its period.