Eighteen years after the first manned mission from Venus lands on an Earth that had become extinct eons before, Kyal Reen, a member of the Venusian scientific and archaeological team, struggles to reconstruct the ancient history of the mysterious long-lost Terrans, working with a biologist named Lorili, who hopes to prove a relationship between the inhabitants of the two planets.

Quite an interesting story, though the ending was pretty obvious almost from the get-go. Like most of Hogan’s books, there’s a heavy reliance on scientific theory. Unfortunately, some of those theories are totally wrong (has that much changed since 2007?) I was surprised how all those smart Venusians hadn’t figured it out yet. And why were they calling their planet Venus, anyway? Quite the coincidence that they called it the same thing as the extinct humans. Same with Mars.

And, boy, don’t the Venusians consider themselves smarter! Hogan doesn’t miss a chance to have one of the characters expound on how humans destroyed themselves, something Venusians would never do! And all the things they got wrong (which, it turns out, they didn’t.)

I did like a couple of the characters, though I bit more background would have been appreciated. Their storylines were maybe a bit too sketchy. They seem to be holding up the plot being espoused, rather than the plot moving the characters’ stories forward.

So, an okay story that held my interest, even if I could have done without the moralizing. Still, an intriguing premise that could have been better done.





( Mount TBR 2024 Book Links 1-25 )

26. Just After Sunset by Stephen King
27. The Lighthouse Keeper Kindle Edition by Alan K. Baker
28. I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away by Bill Bryson
29. The Road Not Travelled : Alternative Tales of the Wars of the Roses by Joanne R. Larner
30. King's Fool by Margaret Campbell Barnes
31. The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
32. Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism by Diana B. Henriques
33. Seven Perfect Things by Catherine Ryan Hyde
34. Legends by Robert Silverberg (Editor/Contributor)
35. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1) by Jasper Fforde
36. Echoes of an Alien Sky by James P. Hogan







AUG – School, Cut, Sky, Fate, Wing, Belong, Justice, Way⁠

Echoes of an Alien Sky by James P. Hogan

The end of exile.

Long before the world of the Ganymeans blew apart, millennia ago, the strange race of giants had vanished. No one could discover their fate, nor where they had gone, nor why. There was only a wrecked ship abandoned on a frozen satellite of Jupiter. And now Earth's code and scientists were there, determined to ferret out the secret of the lost race.

And suddenly, spinning out of the vastness of space and immensity of time, the ship of the strange, humanoid giants returned. They brought with them answers that would alter all Mankind's knowledge of human origins in startling revelations from the past that would have biologic reverberations to be at this time.

As its predecessor did, much of this book revolves more around the mystery of the Ganymeans; where did the rest of them go, and what did they have to do with Man’s history? Those who have returned seem open to all of the humans’ questions, but are they, really?

And, as in its predecessor, the main characters are rather two dimensional, though Hunt is given a couple of one-night stands, to show that he’s a manly man, I guess. He’s almost as much of an enigma as the Ganymeans. Dancheckker stays mostly in the background.

But, finally, a major female character! Except she’s one of the aliens; guess you can’t have everything.

All of this is a shame, because the book does, again like its predecessor, deliver when it comes to keeping the reader interested in the mystery. There is a bit of annoying slangy speak, especially since it’s between humans and the Ganymeans, but it wasn’t enough to put me off.




Mount TBR 2021 Book Links

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
2. Polaris
3. How Democracies Die
4. Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood: Beloved Fairy Tales from the Queen to Cinderella
5. The Fateful Lightning (Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater #4)
6. Circling the Sun
7. The Petticoat Men
8. Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers
9. Running with the Demon (The Word & The Void #1)
10. The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (Giants #2)












2021 LJ BOOK BINGO