Echoes of an Alien Sky »

James P. Hogan is a science fiction writer in the grand tradition, combining informed and accurate speculation from the cutting edge of science and technology with suspenseful story-telling and living, breathing characters. His first novel was greeted by Isaac Asimov with the rave, ¿Pure science fiction . . . Arthur Clarke, move over!¿ and his subsequent work quickly consolidated his reputation as a major SF author. He has written nearly twenty novels including Cradle of Saturn and Bug Park (both Baen), the Giants series (Del Rey), the New York Times bestsellers The Proteus Operation and Endgame Enigma, and the Prometheus Award Winner The Multiplex Man.

Eighteen years have passed since the first manned mission to Earth arrived from Venus. With the first colonists already establishing themselves across the bright, sunny world of clear blue skies and wonderlands of towering mountains and ice deserts, Kyal Reen arrives to join the Venusian scientific and archeological teams that are working to reconstruct the story of the mysterious and enigmatic extinct Terran race that once flourished there. Studies of Terran geology, scientific works, and ancient records show that Earth's early peoples witnessed terrifying cataclysmic cosmic events in skies very different from those seen today. In his travels among the Terran ruins, Kyal meets a biologist called Lorili, who is attempting to explain certain baffling similarities between some Terran and Venusian life forms that are irreconcilable with the established fact that Venus is a far younger planet than Earth. Formerly aligned with the ¿Progressive¿ activists back on Venus, Lorili admires the qualities of tenacity and determination written through Terran history. She constructs a theory of Venusians being descended from Terran ancestors. However, even allowing for the greatly exaggerated time scales that Terran science assigned to the processes of biological and planetary evolution, further research shows that there could have been no overlap. The Terrans were extinct long before life emerged on Venus. But there is a different, unexpected answer to the riddle. Lorili and Kyal will have to fight for their theory and their lives.

Publishers Weekly

Pulp stalwart Hogan (The Two Moons) falls down on the job with this lackluster tale of spacefaring Venusians exploring the ancient ruins of Earth's civilization. A political schism has arisen between the old-fashioned Venus natives, who passively and politely take what universe-creator Vizek hands them, and hot-headed Progressives, who feel their society is stagnating and needs some order and discipline. Meanwhile, scientist Kyal Reen is trying to figure out whether Terrans managed to develop electrogravitic propulsion in time for some of them to escape Earth's death throes. The plot-a mix of exposition, polemics and pseudoscience-follows a predictable path to its predictable conclusion. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.