The Stonehenge Gate » (Unabridged)

Jack Williamson published his first short story in 1928, and he's been producing entertaining, thought-provoking science fiction ever since. A Hugo and Nebula Award-winner, he was the second person named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Williamson was the first to write fiction about genetic engineering and terraforming, terms he himself coined. A Renaissance man whose work spans SF, fantasy, and horror, Williamson lives in Portales, New Mexico.

An extraordinary journey to the stars, from the Dean of Science Fiction Writers.

Publishers Weekly

This trippy stand-alone from Hugo- and Nebula-winner Williamson reads like a novelization of Paul Verhoeven directing Jules Verne's combined rewrite of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. It follows the world-hopping adventures of four poker buddies: physicist Derek and archeologist Lupe, both so obsessed with exploration and getting grants that they have no sense of personal safety; Ram, a linguist descended from an extraterrestrial deity; and Will, a weak-willed English professor who just wants to go home. Williamson's artificial creatures are brilliant as always, so much so that the shape-shifting intelligent metal caretakers of these distant planets are more lovingly and intricately described than the people. Derek and Lupe's absence through most of the book renders them mere plot devices, and Ram and Will's search for their compatriots turns into a humorless parody of the clever dark-skinned native leading the stumbling white man through the jungle. Lush descriptions and a refreshingly brisk pace buoy the novel, but the characters are so uninteresting that disbelief soon becomes as hard to suspend as the space elevator that carries them between worlds. Agent, Eleanor Wood at the Spectrum Literary Agency. (Aug.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.