A Son of the Rock

Bantam, 1994, 300 p.

This is the second in McIntyre’s Starfarer series the first of which I reviewed here.

The spaceship Starfarer has ridden a line of cosmic string to the solar system of Tau Ceti. Unfortunately the nuclear bomb sent after it by the US Government to prevent the voyage has gone off partly damaging the ship but also scaring off the inhabitants at Tau Ceti II. In addition something, probably sabotage, has crashed the Starfarer>’s operating system, Arachne, so that the crew and passengers can no longer interact with it.

The survey team sent down to Tau Ceti II’s moon to investigate the dome there is disappointed when the dome collapses as soon as they try to enter it. Only one small artifact is salvaged. Unlike our solar system Tau Ceti is inundated with cosmic string but these are beginning to drift away and no further exploration of the apparently hospitable Tau Ceti II is possible. The choice is between meekly returning to Earth or following the tantalising glimpse of an alien ship fleeing their arrival.

A jump to Sirius is undertaken where they are pursued by a small blue replica of Earth. This turns out to be the ship which had fled Tau Ceti but Starfarer has somehow outpaced it. The aliens on it transpire to be descendants of humans plucked from Earth millennia ago and frustratingly unforthcoming about galactic civilisation.

Also in the mix here is the internal politics on board Starfarer, the search for the saboteur and the unusual relationships structures to be found in this future. (See my review of Starfarers in the link above.)

Transition is interesting but is the second in a four book series so not much is resolved.

Pedant’s corner:- “it’s surface set” (its,) “‘somebody you absolutely loath’” (loathe,) “powers haven fallen” (have fallen,) “‘Jesus christ’” (usually both parts of the name are capitalised.) “The planet passed, beyond J.D.’s reach” (passed beyond,) a missing comma at the end of a piece of direct speech, “version of an omnipotent goddesses from ancient India” (goddess,) “the hoi polloi” (‘hoi’ is Greek for ‘the’ so it ought to be just ‘hoi polloi’,) nonplused (nonplussed,) “‘that we’ve cause them nothing but trouble’” (caused,) “petrie dish” (x 2, Petri dish,) “but could to keep from laughing” (garbled, the sense is ‘couldn’t keep from laughing’.) “A rippled passed through” (A ripple.)