Reviews

• Romanzo d'esordio ben riuscito

  Romanzo de'erordio dell'Autore. Interessante, con personaggi ben delineati. Finale forse poco credibile, ma ottimista. Recentemente tradotto in italiano e disponibile su Urania.

• Is Humanity Ready for Alien Contact?

  What a magnificent book, and a debut (twenty years ago!), to boot. The vast majority of today’s science fiction debut novels can’t hold a candle to this one. The Hercules Text is a first-contact story, wherein humanity finally receives signals from another life form, but more importantly, the story is about all the scientific, social, political and religious implications that follow. The alien contact is realistic, however, so there is no two-way communication because the message itself took a million years to reach Earth - it’s all just a bunch of sit-and-get for the humans sitting on our end of the telescope (and other fancy equipments). The plot does follow a few mysteries through the course of the book, but mostly the story is not about the alien contact, but the reaction to the contact. In lesser hands, such a story would be boring, and I can understand how some of today’s readers would be put off by the pace of this novel, but if you understand that McDevitt is taking a realistic, mature, and well-thought-out approach to how the characters react, then you start to find depth in the ideas, and sincere moments of self-reflection about how your notions of the world and of humanity’s place in the universe might change. The reason I knew that this was a five-star novel was because The Hercules Text made me feel the way a good science fiction novel should make the reader feel: small against the vastness of the universe, and hopeful that humanity will capably find its way into the future.

• Nur das Original ist original

  Eine der besten und einflussreichsten First-Contact-Erzählungen, bei der Science im Vordergrund steht. Auch die Ausarbeitung der einzelnen Charaktere ist absolut glaubwürdig, was dem ganzen Werk einen hohen grad an fiktiver Authentizität verleiht. Zudem wird der Spannungsbogen sehr effektiv gespannt, sodass man versucht ist, das ganze Buch am Stück zu lesen - und dann gleich noch mal. Allerdings sollte man diese „Novel“ unbedingt im englischen Original genießen. Die deutsche Übersetzung ist dürftig und strotzt vor Fehlern. Ist man der englischen Sprache nicht ausreichend mächtig, sollte man besser verzichten und etwas anderes lesen

• Hard SF, med många personer involverade

  OK, men lite rörig. Väldigt många personer, och deras relationer, beskrivs i boken. Hade förväntat mig mer av ett grandiost mysterium, med mer fokus på de vetenskapliga, när det ändå handlar om mänsklighetens första kontakt med en utomjordisk intelligens.

• Love Jack McDevitt

  Love Jack McDevitt, what a great book, wish there was more detail about what they did with the new found knodwegle.

Purchase links