Sometimes the old pulpy science fiction is really fun and good, and sometimes it just falls flat. Inherit the Stars is a case of the latter. Not so bad that I’ll never read another Hogan again, but enough to make me wary. Take a non-original idea about human origins, then have lackluster scientist-like characters dole it out in little pieces so it can all be tied together with a big let-down of a revelation on the last page. The real problem with the book though is that every single paragraph should have started with As you know Bob…
What do I mean by that? For the non-science fiction fan, here’s the gist. Sometimes a writer has a whole lot of information to impart about the world, the characters, or the action. The standard advice is to show not tell
. But sometimes it’s hard to avoid an information dump, for expediency, for pacing, or for other good reasons. These long descriptions are often told by one character to another character that already knows all the information. In real life, when you tell another person stuff they already know, you are a bore. The real target in this structure is the reader.
Moon explorers in Inherit the Stars discover a 50,000 year old human corpse in a space suit. How did it get there? How can humans have been around, in space way back when? And just what used to be where the asteroid belt is in the solar system’s pantheon?
As you know Bob, there’s no such thing as parallel evolution where species start out separate but become genetically alike. Therefore the human on the moon and humans now come from a common ancestor. But as you know Bob, there’s no trace of an advanced civilization on Earth 50,000 years ago. Therefore our man on the moon must have come from somewhere else, but to be consistent with our previous information, must have genetic stock based on Earth!
The entire book is filled with paragraphs like that, minus the As you know Bobs
. Every few pages, Hogan doles out another little bit of new discovery, followed immediately by speculation as to how it all fits in, followed by the obvious tying together of everything into a single theory that fits every fact
known. The thing is, the theory is always obvious from the known facts. And pretty much the entire human origin myth behind the book is obvious from about 50 pages in. Maybe it’s only obvious because I’ve read a ton of science fiction. Who knows?
Thing is, all this would be acceptable in pulp science fiction if the story were any good. But the whole point of the story is exposition of this alternative theory of human evolution. If there were a cheesy adventure, or conspiracies with much underhanded plotting by rival groups, or something! But no. Just the wash, rinse, repeat, of new information dumps.
Other blogged reviews:
Title: Inherit the Stars
Author: James P. Hogan
Cover creator: Darrell K. Sweet
Series: Giants; 1
Imprint / publisher: Del Rey / Ballantine
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 216 p.
Publication date: May 1977
ISBN-10: 0-345-25704-9
I read this book when it was new — I agree with you. I read one more of his books, it was about the same — so I gave up on him.