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The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye
Copyright 1992 by
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
I first read this in May 1993 and most recently on the 14th February 2010
In which Commodore Renner and Horace Bury save the Empire from the renewed Motie menace.
This novel was also published as "The Gripping Hand", so don't get caught out by buying that book too.
It took Niven and Pournelle eighteen years to get this sequel completed. I thought, to show respect, I'd give it a few reads over the past eighteen years before I wrote the review. And then to take a couple of years to do the spell check.
Even with all that maturation, it's not a great novel. You probably knew that already as the book has been out now for over twenty years. It is fun however, most of the time. There's a bit too much uncritical acceptance of the politics of the aristocracy to my way of thinking. Probably because I'm not in the aristocracy. I thought I was reading one of Elizabeth Moon's Serrano Legacy novels, "Once A Hero" or "Hunting Party". At times, I reached to straighten the medals on my chest. I even dreamed of going to the Officer's Ball. Herein lies madness, do not be taken in any supposed superiority of the aristocracy. I know that and would hope that Niven and Pournelle know it too.
There is some entertainment in the all the whizzing around through space. But that's it really.
As it happens I'm just reading Niven and Pournelle's superb "Protector" once again. Now that is a very fine book. This doesn't match up.
Loaded on the 31st December 2014.
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