I never read a science fiction story quite like Inherit the Stars.* This was a great little read. As a matter of fact, I’m going to keep it handy for a quick weekend re-read.
The story as it is takes place in the year 2027, which would have been fifty years in the future for Hogan when he published the book. The body of a dead astronaut is found on the Moon. It’s human, but none of the lunar bases report any crewman missing. Then, the entire scientific establishment is thrown into uproar as carbon dating establishes the body – nicknamed “Charlie” – to be 50,000 years old.
A young hot-shot physicist-engineer-jack-of-all-trades, or -sciences, is called in, but in reality, the book’s protagonist is us. As a modern-day cross between Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, it’s a technological mystery for us to solve. Throughout the first two-thirds of the novel we're supplied clues, Deus ex Machina style. Then, we tag along with the scientists as hypotheses are tossed around, debated, thrown out or reformulated.
And by novel’s end, our whole place in the universe will have been turned upside down.
Sounds like a lot? It is, but it’s readable, and though dry never reads like a textbook. Some of the sciences and disciplines touched on, to varying degrees of depth, are: human biology, planetary physics, geology, evolution, linguistics, climatology, and faster-than-light travel. By the end of the book you’ll have a decent understanding of the Moon. Or it may be a new understanding of the Moon. You’ll see.
Consider the following data:
* A 50,000-year-old human body found on the Moon.
* A logbook or journal on the body, written in some unknown alphabet.
* A planet – called Minerva – once existed in what is now the Asteroid Belt.
* A 25-million-year-old ship is discovered buried in the ice crust of Ganymede.
Can you come up with a theory which covers all these points?
Maybe, but the heroes of Inherit the Stars will, aided with a few more clues, much deductive reasoning and experimentation, and lots of speculation. Hint: my initial guess of time travel was wrong.
The characters, while not quite one-dimensional, never really make the transition to realism. There’s a lot of Seventies-isms, too, such as constant cigarette smoking and expletives of “Christ!” every time there’s a breakthrough or a revelation. But I quickly realized that’s all irrelevant, because Inherit the Stars is a mental puzzle with you along for the ride. An exercise in the application of the Scientific Method in the form of a science fiction novel.
What pushed the novel, for me, from B plus to A minus territory is the surprisingly touching and “human”-izing ending (and I do mean ending – don’t skip ahead and read the very last page under any circumstances!). Definitely will be re-read. **
* Colin Wilson’s Mind Parasites comes close, but that had some rudimentary scenes of action.
** Inherit the Stars is the first in a five-book series. Each novel gets crazier and crazier, from what I’ve read – and the “crazier” I mean is in an intellectual-idea sense. I have the fourth book in the series, Entoverse, in the cue for a reading, but I haven’t decided whether I want to skip three books ahead or not.
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