Moat Around Murchison's Eye

Niven and Pournelle collaborated again, this time for a third Mote novel. If you haven't read the first, the description here won't matter. The Mote in God's Eye was good.

This one is competent, but a bit disappointing. A red herring is waved too hard, there's way more focus on love lives than is useful to the story, and several characters, though well-defined at first, become less distinguishable later on. Pournelle's been unwell: I wonder if he didn't push back enough.

It seemed a little odd that the Moties didn't try a very simple probe of the Crazy Eddie Point: a small craft with a big engine in the process of reversing direction just as it passes through. Time it correctly and it would come right back quickly enough to let the Moties get a record of what was on the other side.

It reads like a finale, though I suppose a sequel in another generation is possible.