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To return to the spoiler-free review of THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE,
click here.
Another example of this inconsistency are the
aliens themselves. They are frequently described as one of the
best alien species in the history of science fiction. And they
are… for the first half of the book. But as more details
reveal themselves, inconsistencies and logical holes begin to
develop. Not enough to rob them of their effectiveness and
cleverness, but enough to mar what would otherwise have been a
flawless creation.
Specifically, I’m thinking of the caste
structure here. The caste structure as it is handled in the
first half of the book – Mediator, Master, Brown, Miniature,
Warrior – makes sense. (At least to a large degree: How the
Masters dominate the Warriors is not wholly comprehensible.) But
once Niven and Pournelle started adding in things like the
Doctors and Farmers, the system stopped making sense: How could
castes like that survive during the periods of savagery and
barbarism? And, in the case of the Doctors, how do you get a
caste who is eminently suited to both primitive and advanced
medicine?
On a similar
note, a perpetual annoyance for me in MOTE was the misuse of the
word “evolution”. Characters were constantly talking about
how the moties would have “evolved” into these castes. (It
was also annoying that they kept wanting to link these periods
of evolution to the mutations resulting from their atomic wars.
I thought that well-warmed chestnut had been burnt to a crisp
long before 1974.) Eventually I just started to substitute
“genetically engineered” for “evolved”, and that helped
reduce my annoyance.
(This trick is similar to my trick of
thinking that Asimov’s references to ‘atomic power’ in the
Foundation trilogy really refer to a future technology which
involves atomic manipulation, not nuclear power. The reason this
annoys me in MOTE, but in Foundation, is that Niven and
Pournelle should have known better.)
For example,
despite the fact that the human expedition is trying to keep the
Langston Field a secret from the aliens, they leave their fields
turned on for the duration of their stay in the alien system:
Giving the aliens plenty of time to observe the fields in
action.
This doesn’t
make sense even before they know the Moties are technical
wizkids. They’re explicitly aware from the get-go that the
Langston field was discovered by accident, but that it can
certainly be discovered once you know what you’re trying to
do.
And, speaking of
inconsistencies, you’ve also got the Motie embassy ship
deliberately splashing the field during their deceleration.
Despite the fact that they programmed that deceleration long
before knowing that the fields existed. In other words, when
they programmed that deceleration they were (apparently)
planning to splash the human ships. And nobody cares. Not even
the humans who would have been incinerated by this blatantly
hostile act.
It probably didn’t help that I’d been
wondering since the beginning of the book why they hadn’t
immediately adopted the course of action which is supposed to be
the major revelation of the book’s conclusion.
I am, of course,
speaking of the idea of blockading the Moties. I’d been
wondering why they didn’t immediately blockade the
system when the expedition left to explore Motie space. I was
even more baffled that they didn’t blockade the system
immediately after the expedition returned from Motie space. If
you're worried about someone following you into the house, you close
the bloody door. Spending several days in committee meetings
before concluding that, if you want to secure the house, you
should shut the door doesn't strike me as a brilliant revelation
- it just establishes that you're dumb as wood.
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