Sep 07
Click for full imageMatt Comments: I really love your site and have been hooked since your first cover. 
🙂
Published 2000
Thanks Matt! We love you too!
Well most of us do…
(Average: 7.73 out of 10)
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Matt Comments: I really love your site and have been hooked since your first cover. 🙂
Published 2000
Thanks Matt! We love you too!
Well most of us do…
(Average: 7.73 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.01 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
September 7th, 2012 at 9:23 am
THREE arms? That’s something you don’t see very often.
September 7th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Three arms and one ear, to boot! Those Masters of the Universe action figures really ran out of ideas.
September 7th, 2012 at 10:08 am
… or parts.
September 7th, 2012 at 10:15 am
At last, a cover that accurately conveys the contents. The three-armed critters are like Gremlins with PhDs in engineering. This book’s sort of a standard now, clunky though it is. If you read SF then Niven and Pournelle are something you have to know about, much the way Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf are for rock – with the same staus as either a guilty pleasure or a profound embarrassment. What puzzles me is that the authors are credited as ‘bestselling authors of The Gripping Hand!’, and yet nobody I know has ever heard of that. Is the exclamation-mark part of the title?
Oh, and a font done by a bored Year Eight in a maths lesson.
September 7th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
We only approximate to bilateral symmetry on my planet. Two arms on one side, one arm on the other. Five digits on our two right hands, three on our solitary left. And only the one ear. Pardon?
And we love to freefall. Wheeeee!
September 7th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
@Tat Wood: At the time of this book’s publication people would not have heard of THE GRIPPING HAND because it is the sequel to THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE.
Interesting that they’re promoting a book by referring to its sequel. (Which wasn’t really better than this one, btw)
But yes, the cover model looks about right.
September 7th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Please tell me that’s an annoyingly sparkly cover-background.
September 7th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
WHERE IT’S AT!
I got two skinny arms and a giant ear
September 7th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
I think the cover for their “Lucifer’s Hammer” is better/worse.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Lucifer%27sHammer%28Fawcett%29.jpg
September 7th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Hmm. Accurate Motie, accurate background (the “jump point” for the Mote is inside the photosphere of a red giant star, which is why they haven’t spread), but the motie would be fried. Yes, they are three-armed: and so not forewarned (groan).
September 8th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
@Jon: LOL @ Beck reference!
September 9th, 2012 at 1:10 am
@fred. I think that one deserves its own entry. Anyone have a copy?
September 10th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
People might think “The Gripping Hand” is some kind of sci-fi mafia, like The Black Hand, only it forces people to buy crappy paperbacks or have their kneecaps busted…
September 11th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
It looks like a wer-man-bear-bat with three arms.
October 28th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Well on one hand this cover accurately shows the moties.
And on the other hand the moties don’t look scary enough in this cover.
But on the gripping hand this cover just stinks.
October 4th, 2014 at 2:06 pm
If you spoonerize this title it could be “The Goat In Maud’s Eye” which I think sounds much more interesting.
October 4th, 2014 at 2:13 pm
@Tom: Written by Nary Liven, no less.
March 27th, 2015 at 2:50 pm
“Bestselling authors of the Gripping Hand“? They’re just fucking with us now.
Points for space bats, though. Space bats FTW!