Mission to Minerva (Giants) 
asked by officefan on November 28, 2006 11:16 AM
Earth is adapting to a future of amicable coexistence with the advanced aliens from Thurien, descended from ancestors who once inhabited Minerva, a vanished planet of the Solar System. The plans of the distantly related humans on the rogue world Jevlen to eliminate their ancient Terran rivals and take over the Thurien system of worlds have been thwarted, but the mystery remains of how it was possible for the fleeing Jevlenese leaders to have been flung back across space and time to reappear at Minerva before the time of its destruction. Victor Hunt and a group of his colleagues travel to Thurien to conduct a joint investigation with the alien scientists into the strange physics of interconnectedness between the countless alternate universes that constitute ultimate reality. When their discoveries lead first to bizarre communication with bewildered counterparts in other universes, and thence to the possibility of physical travel, the notion is conceived of sending a mission back to the former world of Minerva with the startling objective of creating a new family of realities in which its destruction is avoided. But Imares Broghuilio, the deposed Jevlenese leader, along with several thousand dedicated followers with five heavily armed starships, are already there. And they have a score to settle.
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This excellent story is number five in the "Giants" series.
It starts with the main hero of the previous books, Dr Hunt, getting a call from his equivalent self in another universe ...
The individual volumes in the series to date are
1) Inherit the Stars (one of the best SF stories ever written)
2) The Gentle Giants of Ganymede
3) Giants Star
4) Entoverse
5) Mission to Minerva
There are also two omnibus volumes: "The Two Moons" which combines the first two books (The moons concerned being Earth's moon, and Jupiter's moon Ganymede) and the a "3 in 1 Giants Omnibus" which combines the first three.
All these novels follow on from a story which begins in "Inherit the Stars" when modern astronauts on the moon find a 50,000 year old human body which completely overturns our ideas about man's place in the universe.
During the course of the series, and usually several times per book, the heroes keep finding new discoveries which force them to re-evaluate their ideas about the origins of humanity all over again. A positive aspect of that is that it keeps the books fresh as the stories often go off in different directions: a negative aspect is that some readers who like the first book may find some of the subsequent ones a little silly.
The scientific and computer backgrounds appear to be very carefully researched and thought through, but some readers will find the leaps of imagination a too extreme to retain credibility: others will find the sheer ambitious breadth of Hogan's imagination to be the very thing which makes these works of fiction so memorable and entertaining.
I enjoyed all five novels and warmly recommend them. If you like the kind of science fiction which stretches the imagination, you will very probably enjoy these stories.
It starts with the main hero of the previous books, Dr Hunt, getting a call from his equivalent self in another universe ...
The individual volumes in the series to date are
1) Inherit the Stars (one of the best SF stories ever written)
2) The Gentle Giants of Ganymede
3) Giants Star
4) Entoverse
5) Mission to Minerva
There are also two omnibus volumes: "The Two Moons" which combines the first two books (The moons concerned being Earth's moon, and Jupiter's moon Ganymede) and the a "3 in 1 Giants Omnibus" which combines the first three.
All these novels follow on from a story which begins in "Inherit the Stars" when modern astronauts on the moon find a 50,000 year old human body which completely overturns our ideas about man's place in the universe.
During the course of the series, and usually several times per book, the heroes keep finding new discoveries which force them to re-evaluate their ideas about the origins of humanity all over again. A positive aspect of that is that it keeps the books fresh as the stories often go off in different directions: a negative aspect is that some readers who like the first book may find some of the subsequent ones a little silly.
The scientific and computer backgrounds appear to be very carefully researched and thought through, but some readers will find the leaps of imagination a too extreme to retain credibility: others will find the sheer ambitious breadth of Hogan's imagination to be the very thing which makes these works of fiction so memorable and entertaining.
I enjoyed all five novels and warmly recommend them. If you like the kind of science fiction which stretches the imagination, you will very probably enjoy these stories.
reviewed by borat on November 28, 2006 5:57 PM
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If you are contemplating buying James P. Hogan's MISSION to MINERVA, you have probably already read the first four books in the series, starting with INHERIT the STARS and moving to to ENTOVERSE. Probably the main characters-- Vic Hunt, Chris, Greg Caldwell, etc. are like old friends. If so, you will want to read MISSION and will probably enjoy it.
But, and here I disagree with a number of other reviewers, I did not find MISSION to be a fully worthy sequel, for a number of reasons. If you don't want to read a somewhat negative review, please just stop here.
First, I almost resented being brought back to this series after so many years. Entoverse came out in 1992 and when I read it, I remember being mildly annoyed that it had been about a dozen years since the original trilogy. The GIANTS trilogy stood well on its own. I always suspected that when sales of more recent novels tanked, Hogan went back to it for sequels to pay the rent, and that rankled a bit.
Second, Hogan has always been good with hard science SF but this time it has just taken over the novel, esp. the first half. And I'm not sure the physics therein could even be called hard science. You'd have to make some wild assumptions and toss out most of what we know about quantum mechanics to find the basic hypotheses in MISSION to be plausible.
Third, is it just me or has Hogan undergone a radical political shift in his advancing years? The "utopian" future he presents in Thurien civilization seems astonishingly Marxist and egalitarian and the expostulations he lets many characters spout made him seem embarassed to be human. It seemed that Danchekker's cousin was tossed in specifically to do just that.
All that said, the second half of MISSION is fun and better-paced and less expository. And, as Confucius said at the beginning of The Analects, "To have friends come from afar, is this not, after all, a delight?" (You peng cong yuan fang lai, bu yi le hu")
Yes, it is, after all 12 years, a delight. Welcome back, Vic Hunt! Here's hoping for a somewhat better sequel!
But, and here I disagree with a number of other reviewers, I did not find MISSION to be a fully worthy sequel, for a number of reasons. If you don't want to read a somewhat negative review, please just stop here.
First, I almost resented being brought back to this series after so many years. Entoverse came out in 1992 and when I read it, I remember being mildly annoyed that it had been about a dozen years since the original trilogy. The GIANTS trilogy stood well on its own. I always suspected that when sales of more recent novels tanked, Hogan went back to it for sequels to pay the rent, and that rankled a bit.
Second, Hogan has always been good with hard science SF but this time it has just taken over the novel, esp. the first half. And I'm not sure the physics therein could even be called hard science. You'd have to make some wild assumptions and toss out most of what we know about quantum mechanics to find the basic hypotheses in MISSION to be plausible.
Third, is it just me or has Hogan undergone a radical political shift in his advancing years? The "utopian" future he presents in Thurien civilization seems astonishingly Marxist and egalitarian and the expostulations he lets many characters spout made him seem embarassed to be human. It seemed that Danchekker's cousin was tossed in specifically to do just that.
All that said, the second half of MISSION is fun and better-paced and less expository. And, as Confucius said at the beginning of The Analects, "To have friends come from afar, is this not, after all, a delight?" (You peng cong yuan fang lai, bu yi le hu")
Yes, it is, after all 12 years, a delight. Welcome back, Vic Hunt! Here's hoping for a somewhat better sequel!
reviewed by onthemic on November 29, 2006 12:38 AM
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"Mission to Minerva" brought a whole lot memories rushing back when I spotted it on the bookshelves of a bookstore I was browsing through in late November.
James P. Hogan's "Inherit the Stars," "Gentle Giants of Ganymede" and "Giants' Star" were among the first SF novels I'd ever read. Heh. Suffice to say, I purchased "Mission" and, for the most part, don't regret it. What I liked and disliked follow:
LIKES
1. The recap at the beginning of the novel. It was a nice way of refamiliarizing myself with the characters. After all, I hadn't read of Hunt, Danchekker, et al., since the late 1980s!
2. The chronology at the end of the novel. That went far in helping me to visualize the breadth of the "Giants" universe, so to speak. Such huge expanses of time, a good part of which remain a mystery.
3. Getting a closer look at what the societies and governments of Minerva were like. There were times I felt like I was prying (in a good way!) into the affairs of my great-to-the-nth-power grandparents!
4. Learning a bit more about the Giants' former presence on Minerva.
5. VISAR and ZORAC. Need more be said? Yes! Their wisecracks were great!
6. Imares Broghuilio, the leader of the Jevlenese thrown back through time, and his "merry" bunch. It was a hoot to see Broghuilio in action again; I couldn't help but laugh at how he reacted to the circumstances he found himself in, especially toward the end. Classic Broghuilio! Heh. For some reason I kept envisioning Looney Tunes' Yosemite Sam whenever Broghuilio would go off the deep end.
DISLIKES
1. The "hard SF" went a little overboard. While I'm no physicist, neither am I completely unfamiliar with theories involving multiple realities and whatnot. Yet this is what took up a good chunk of the novel - the first half, minimum - and, frankly, it was a challenge to get into the story in the beginning. And, yes, I know Hogan is a "hard SF" writer, so I wasn't going in uninformed. Still ...
2. I wanted more of a character-driven story once the "mission to Minerva" part kicked off. I wanted to know more about the Cerians, the Lambians, Kles, Laisha, et al. Sadly, it wasn't fully to be, but I did savor what meat there was. Also, as another reviewer noted, I had hoped Charlie and Koriel (characters from previous Hogan novels in the "Giants" lineage) would make appearances, but they didn't.
3. While Hogan chose a novel way to excise the Jevlenese, it seemed a bit too "convenient" and quick for me.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Hogan's "Mission" is a solid piece of work. It's not perfect by any means - I counted close to a dozen grammatical errors throughout the novel (publishers really need to pay more attention to copy editing, because this is a trend I've noticed more and more over the last five to 10 years) - but its woes aren't enough to warrant a "no-buy" decision. This is particularly true if you're into the "Giants" series or Hogan's works in general.
James P. Hogan's "Inherit the Stars," "Gentle Giants of Ganymede" and "Giants' Star" were among the first SF novels I'd ever read. Heh. Suffice to say, I purchased "Mission" and, for the most part, don't regret it. What I liked and disliked follow:
LIKES
1. The recap at the beginning of the novel. It was a nice way of refamiliarizing myself with the characters. After all, I hadn't read of Hunt, Danchekker, et al., since the late 1980s!
2. The chronology at the end of the novel. That went far in helping me to visualize the breadth of the "Giants" universe, so to speak. Such huge expanses of time, a good part of which remain a mystery.
3. Getting a closer look at what the societies and governments of Minerva were like. There were times I felt like I was prying (in a good way!) into the affairs of my great-to-the-nth-power grandparents!
4. Learning a bit more about the Giants' former presence on Minerva.
5. VISAR and ZORAC. Need more be said? Yes! Their wisecracks were great!
6. Imares Broghuilio, the leader of the Jevlenese thrown back through time, and his "merry" bunch. It was a hoot to see Broghuilio in action again; I couldn't help but laugh at how he reacted to the circumstances he found himself in, especially toward the end. Classic Broghuilio! Heh. For some reason I kept envisioning Looney Tunes' Yosemite Sam whenever Broghuilio would go off the deep end.
DISLIKES
1. The "hard SF" went a little overboard. While I'm no physicist, neither am I completely unfamiliar with theories involving multiple realities and whatnot. Yet this is what took up a good chunk of the novel - the first half, minimum - and, frankly, it was a challenge to get into the story in the beginning. And, yes, I know Hogan is a "hard SF" writer, so I wasn't going in uninformed. Still ...
2. I wanted more of a character-driven story once the "mission to Minerva" part kicked off. I wanted to know more about the Cerians, the Lambians, Kles, Laisha, et al. Sadly, it wasn't fully to be, but I did savor what meat there was. Also, as another reviewer noted, I had hoped Charlie and Koriel (characters from previous Hogan novels in the "Giants" lineage) would make appearances, but they didn't.
3. While Hogan chose a novel way to excise the Jevlenese, it seemed a bit too "convenient" and quick for me.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Hogan's "Mission" is a solid piece of work. It's not perfect by any means - I counted close to a dozen grammatical errors throughout the novel (publishers really need to pay more attention to copy editing, because this is a trend I've noticed more and more over the last five to 10 years) - but its woes aren't enough to warrant a "no-buy" decision. This is particularly true if you're into the "Giants" series or Hogan's works in general.
reviewed by corral on November 29, 2006 1:10 PM
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This is the fifth book in the Gentle Giant series. Humans were not the first intelligent life to develop in our Solar system. James P. Hogan's earlier books explore in detail how a taller life form developed on Minerva. They call themselves the Thuriens. Minerva later became our asteroid belt. The Thuriens left our Solar system 25 million years ago. Humans developed on Minerva, and after a deadly war which destroyed Minerva a remnant of humanity migrated to Earth. In these books we find that part of the reason humans have been so warlike is another branch of humanity, the Jewlense, have been manipulating the people on Earth to start wars. Things work out.
The first four books are nicely summarized in the prologue, the first seven pages of "Mission to Minerva."
In the first chapter Victor Hunt, one of the main characters from the previous books, gets a phone call from himself from another universe, a parallel or alternate universe. The first half of the book recounts the efforts of humans and thuriens to develop the technology to go to other universes. This was fun and pleasant.
The second half of the book is about a trip back in time to try and save the humans on Minerva from blowing themselves up. There was a little more tension in this part of the story.
My biggest complaint with the story is that right after developing the technology to go back in time to other universes they mount an expedition to do so. It would seem that after figuring out how to do so, they could have spent some more time mastering the technology before they rushed off to Minerva. Since they can go back in time, they could have waited another five years, or even fifty years. They would have been better prepared and had more technology. Because they rushed off to Minerva there was much greater tension in the story, but I felt the tension was artificially created.
All in all it was a fun read. If you've read the other stories in the series, and enjoyed them, this should be a fun read.
reviewed by alec on November 29, 2006 5:36 PM