Genre: Novel
Sub genre: Science Fiction
Nationality: American
Time Period: 20th Century
First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick in June 1996
Rated: 87 B+
Location: The Mount Vernon Public Library
Comments: Just as a passing note, I should mention that this work which was the impetus for the creation of these archive I am now amassing. It took most of an afternoon just to set up a system into which these thoughts could be deposited.
The Gripping Hand, a sequel to The Mote in God's Eye, is an enjoyable read but not startling in its creation. That is, I suppose the danger of sequels. In the Mote in God's Eye Niven and Pournelle create a race whose very nature--in spite of the pleasantness of individual members--can not be allowed freedom in the galaxy by humankind. In the first novel Humanity finally encounters intelligent life. They exist in a system of a star called "the mote" because it appears to outside lookers as a speck in a large eye formed by another star. These race (called Moties) although very old and very technologically advanced had not discovered hyper-drive and so were locked within their own star system. Humanity is about the give them the technology until a terrible fact is discovered.
The physiology of these beings so propels them to reproduce that they overwhelm any ecology which they enter, and they continue to do so until they destroy themselves and start again. Not only had civilization risen and fallen several times on Mote Prime (their home world) but it had also gone through the same terrible cycle even among space going civilizations. The earth men find heavily mined asteroids all terribly ancient.
This physical fact shapes not only the Moties' view of the value of life (individual life is worthless; family is everything), but their view of history, (a never ending and unavoidable cycle). Because of this, Humanity can not let them out of their system lest they overwhelm human space. So the Mote in God's Eye ends with humanity bottling them up in their system.
The Gripping Hand returns to that system. As mentioned there is little new except that most of the action takes place not on Mote Prime whose civilization has probably once again collapsed into chaos, but among the space faring members of the Motie race. Most of the action centers around the action of the Arab merchant Master Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, his pilot Kevin Renner (both of whom had been to Mote Prime originally) and Chris and Chris and Glenda Roth Blain children taken care of by Moties and belonging to Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler both of whom were part of the original crew.
Humanity is faced with a choice either they must exterminate the Moties or find some way to help them curb their reproductive drive. The more extreme view is held by Horace in the beginning of the novel. He is by far the most interesting character and his experience as being an outsider in the rather Anglo-Saxon sounding Empire because of his Arabian ancestry actually bears a strong role in the solution of which he plays such an important role. There is a lot of action and space battles all a lot of fun to read--but I wouldn't want to be there--especially when at one point they materializing inside a star.