During the height of the Cold War, NASA’s SETI program succeeds in contacting an alien civilization, who share their advanced science and mathematics. NASA’s bureaucrats try to keep everything under wraps, but their scientists (and contractors) build some of the devices described in the alien transmission. Bad things happen, as humans are just not ready to sensibly handle the results. ( )

McDevitt, Jack. The Hercules Text. 1986. 2nd edition. Ace, 2015.
In revisiting his first novel, The Hercules Text, Jack McDevitt found it needed upgrades to its contemporary politics and technology. But even so, some details already seem dated—my favorite being the note that the Redskins are still refusing to change the team’s racist name. In the last couple of years, the team has thankfully changed its name twice and should probably change it again. The novel proposes an intriguing problem for the SETI folks: what should we do if we get a message from a very distant civilization with information containing the keys to immortality and dangerous new technologies, as well as philosophical texts that challenge traditional religious tenets? It is as if an advanced civilization invested a great deal of effort to broadcast its version of Wikipedia into the dark without hope of a response. We see the problem through the eyes of several scientists and a Catholic monk with a scientific education. McDevitt is not a great prose stylist, but he is a good storyteller, even early in his career, and his ideas have merit. 4 stars. ( )

I ordinarily am OK with McDevitt in a 'crusty old guy is making an effort' kind of way. Hutch is tolerable. Alex is a run of the mill "lovable" egotist. Whatever.

But this book. I read it once before. It wasn't memorable. When I decided to re-read it, my love said, 'oh, no, not that', or words to that effect. I made it about halfway through before the vast and numerous irritants outweighed the minuscule enjoyment.

1. Harry is an idiot who stands in for the reader so McDevitt can wax poetic about physics and astronomy, presumably to us idiots. There is NO reason for *an administrator* to rush in to the office when he does. There's no reason for him to even find out about the message for at least 6 months.

2. Harry is an idiot. How did his wife get far enough to have a kid with him? He's a cardboard cut-out. The attempts at depicting gender relationships look like they were written in 1962. "The project heart-throb" very nearly had me pitch the book across the room. Gah! McDevitt did a whole lot better writing women later than in this mess.

3. The scientists are idiots. No way is this stuff timely enough that revealing the information a month or so into trying to interpret it (which happens insanely fast) would be "withholding". No way to prevent other countries from getting the info either. Science isn't a cauldron, it's a sieve.

4. The government agencies are idiots. Their attempt at suppressing *millions of years old* signals is like trying to seal the not-a-cauldron with window screen. Unfortunately, this part is not implausible.

5. The unlikelihood of life and intelligence is harped on to death which makes the fact that the timing in this is too pat even more glaring.

6. All the little things. Constant use of land lines? Magazines all over the place? And a Star Trek game? Seriously? The author might have been forgiven in 1986 when kids were playing with Turtle Graphics, but by the world of 2015, the whole thing is tone deaf. The revision could have fixed that, but didn't. That's OK. This mess isn't worth the effort.

The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt

The Hercules Text, which was first published in 1986, was Jack McDevitt's first full-length book, and it is a fine debut novel. I found that it had some definite similarities to Ancient Shores, a work written by McDevitt some ten years later and another excellent example of speculative fiction. Both books ask 'What if...?' certain prodigious events took place, changing mankind's view of reality and the universe, and both examine the implications of certain discoveries for science, politics, military affairs, the economy, and the everyday lives of ordinary people. While Ancient Shores involves the discovery of alien technology, The Hercules Text is a first-contact story. The aliens, however, never make an appearance because the message which scientists intercept was sent in the distant past.

What I enjoy about many of Jack McDevitt's novels is that they occur in realistic settings and revolve around characters to whom we can easily relate. The people in the story have their own strengths and weaknesses, and react in believable ways to extraordinary situations. This gives the plot developments a pleasing mixture of both the unpredictable and the predictable. And although the scientists working on the decoding of the alien message are experts on recondite subjects which laymen would have difficulty comprehending, the necessary details are presented by the author in a way which is accessible to the average reader.

In my view, this is an example of speculative fiction at its best, since it not only asks ‘What if...?’ but also compels readers to ask themselves what decisions they would make if they found themselves in the positions of the people in the story. At the same time, we are encouraged to consider the greater implications and possibilities for the future of humanity. Readers who enjoy quieter and more thoughtful science fiction which focusses on the human aspects of newly-gained knowledge will likely appreciate this novel.

( )

This was not as good as many of McDevitt's later books. I had a lot of trouble with the ideas about how alien computers might interact with ours, and the idea that somehow the biology of aliens from another galaxy who died out hundreds of thousands of years ago would help significantly in understanding diseases in modern humans. McDevitt doesn't make these kinds of mistakes in his later books, at least not so obviously.

The characters were also not particularly memorable. Pages and pages are spent on one character's marriage issues, and then--whoops, that plot line went nowhere and just got dropped. If it had led somewhere, it could have been interesting.

The book was moderately interesting, but definitely had issues. ( )