Juho Pohjalainen's Reviews > The Mote in God's Eye

The whole species, a parasite. It breeds, it grows, it spreads, and it consumes wherever it goes. It wages war. Its mind alien to all observers, no one knows how it works. When it's here, you're never safe.

But enough about humans. Here's some aliens, first contact scenario.

An overall rather chill first contact. Not much going on at the surface, no great tension or war (well, a little bit war), with all of the stakes in the background. Too big to see. All of cosmos could be decided here, but we mostly don't notice because we get too involved with the little people, the scientists and the warriors and of course the aliens. And in the end it doesn't even go much anywhere: even if it was important, it wasn't all of it. Just a tiny slice of extraterrestial diplomacy.

I think I could've used some more excitement, though, a more proper resolution. And the alien biology didn't always make a whole lot of sense. But it worked okay for what it was trying to do. Not great, but okay.