This one is better if you’re already into science fiction, but god overall as well. It comes from a writing duo, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. together, they wrote books such as Footfall (elephantine aliens invade the Earth) and Lucifer’s Hammer (comet hits the Earth), but their best collaboration is The Mote in God’s Eye, written in 1974.

It’s one of those books with a very detailed, background rich environments that usually strengthens a good story, not as rich as Dune, but certainly deep enough to make a big difference. A thousand years in the future, humanity has regressed from its zenith of the First Empire, though it still capable of space travel using something called the Alderson Drive. The drive uses gravitational lines of influence between stars to allow for a jump from one system to another. No alien species are encountered, however.

New Caledonia, a human colony on the far side of the Coalsack Nebula has been isolated from most of humanity for some time due to wars. During that time, something strange is observed. From the colony, the Coalsack Nebula resembles a hooded man, and two stars–a red giant and its yellow-dwarf companion, appear as the Eye of the man, with the yellow dwarf seeming to be a mote in the eye. But suddenly and inexplicably, the Mote turns bright green–and the green light is coherent. In other words, laser light. After many years, the light gets brighter and brighter, and then suddenly it just turns off. Because of the war, scientific observations are not possible, and the change gets passed down into folklore.

Then, 145 years later an alien probe enters New Caledonia space using a solar sail. When the probe is intercepted, the alien occupant is found dead. But that occupant is bizarre: it is asymmetrical, with one powerful arm on the right, and two delicate ones on the left; a large bat-like ear on the left, a single teat on the right. Its mouth is fixed as if in a smile.

A ship is sent to explore the origin of the craft, which is problematic because the exit point of the interstellar jump to the red giant is within the star itself. It can be done using a special shield, but it also explains why the aliens had to use a solar sail, beyond just lacking the technology: there is only one jump pathway between their world and the universe, and it requires a ship to pass through the red giant’s atmosphere.

The human ship successfully makes the transit and enters the alien system, and that’s where you’ll have to pick it up. The alien race created by Niven and Pournelle is wild and fascinating–and more than just a little scary. There are a lot of secrets, a lot of mysteries about the race, and it is a great deal of fun to see it all revealed over time. The aliens–Moties, as they are called in the book–are very likable, at least the ones you meet. There’s a good deal of exploration, intrigue, and action involved.

If you read Footfall, don’t worry–the aliens in Mote are a lot better drawn than those in the alien-invasion novel. And if you’re not a huge Larry Niven fan (or if you’ve noticed that his latest novels are almost bizarrely discordant), again not to worry, Pournelle tempers Niven’s style; the two make a good combination.

There is a sequel to Mote, titled The Gripping Hand (named after the strong, single right arm that Moties possess), which is good, but not as good as its predecessor, as is so often the case with sequels. But the original is one of the top ten science fiction books I would recommend.