I'm re-reading this book on my Kobo. It's a book I first read back in the 70's. I probably bought it at Shakespeare & Co. a famous bookshop in the latin quarter of Paris, where I could go and spend a couple of hours reading a book in a big leather armchair, so it bears a touch of nostalgia for me.
The premise is of an intelligent species (the Moties), locked in it's own solar system, victim of endless cycles of expansion and destruction due to it's fertility. Larry Niven thought big when he wrote novels like Ringworld, and here it's no exception.
Some things seem a bit dated, for example the descendents of Russia, America or Scotland being important in the distant future, but all in all a good thought provoking read. To me it begs the question: what if our own species winds up becoming Moties?
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