Niven and Pournelle put many technical details into their interplanetary navigation and alien biology to give the story a slightly realistic edge, even though this future aristocratic human empire sounds totally unrealistic as a future for our society.

There is the deep sense of mystery and tension and of course the alien autopsy.

There is the spine-tingling moment of seeing an alien vessel emerge from the dark void of space. This is a classic first-contact novel about meeting an alien civilization for the first time. If we put all that to the side as artifacts of an earlier time, then the story that comes forward is quite exciting. The novel may be a classic in the field, but the field has long moved on in many ways. This is the year 3000 as if humanity had never moved beyond the 20th century in sentiments and many basic technologies. The USA and the Soviet Union inconceivably merged and started exploring space, and there are still hardnosed Russian generals but now they are in spaaaace! He commands a space navy vessel that also holds a sexualized female guest, a greedy Arab merchant and even a Scottish engineer. There is the young captain making bold decisions whose name could have been Kirk. It features stock characters that seem picked right out of 1960s Star Trek. The Mote in God’s Eye is a bit rough around the edges, especially when reading it in the 21st century.

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven