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Biased and superficial Science Fiction reviews

           
     
The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye

Copyright 1992 by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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SOJALS rating:     
one SOJALS point one SOJALS point one SOJALS point no SOJALS point no SOJALS point    Good (3/5)

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.
    
Cover of The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye
Cover art by John Harris

Reviews of other works by Jerry Pournelle:
High Justice
The Mercenary
King David's Spaceship
Janissaries
Exiles To Glory

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven:
A Gift From Earth
Neutron Star
Ringworld
Inconstant Moon
Protector
A Hole In Space
The Flight Of The Horse
Tales Of Known Space
A World Out Of Time
The Magic Goes Away
Convergent Series
The Patchwork Girl
The Ringworld Engineers
Limits
Ringworld's Children

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper:
Building Harlequin's Moon

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle:
The Mote in God's Eye
Inferno
Lucifer's Hammer
Oath Of Fealty
Footfall
The Gripping Hand
The Burning City
Burning Tower

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes:
Dream Park
The Descent Of Anansi
The Barsoom Project
Achilles Choice
Saturn's Race

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn:
Fallen Angels

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes:
The Legacy Of Heorot
Beowolf's Children
The Dragons Of Heorot

Reviews of other works by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson and Dean Ing:
The Man-Kzin Wards



Reviews of other works with covers by John Harris:
Ancillary Mercy
Light Raid
The Stonehenge Gate
Old Man's War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Footfall
Radio Freefall
Earth Unaware
Children Of The Mind

Reviews of other works with covers by John Harris and Carol Russo Design:
Earth Made Of Glass