The Mote in God's Eye

After Ringworld, I liked Nivens Sci-fi concepts, but not so much his characters. The same could be said for Mote, which lacks any strong women characters, but makes up for it with a gripping tale of first contact. After seeing this one on NPRs top 100 SciFi list, and always being interested in first encounters, I knew I had to check this out. The story kept me interested – keeping things a mystery at times, and at other times giving you the information and watching to see if the correct decisions were made. I wouldn't recommend this one for everyone, but if you like entertaining sci fi and an interesting alien race, it's worth a read.