Writing separately, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are responsible for a number of science fiction classics, such as the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning "Ringworld", "Debt of Honor", and "The Integral Trees". Together they have written the critically acclaimed bestsellers "Inferno", "Footfall", and "The Legacy of Heorot", among others. "The Mote In God's Eye" is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre.