Bright New Universe [Paperback]

Jack Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1968

"Think what it would mean! To prove that we aren't alone! To find other worlds, other races -- older and wiser than we are! Out on the moon, I hope to find an answer. If we do pick up a signal from space, it will be the great turning point in our history. It will give our lives a meaning." Yet to make his words good, Adam Cave had to break with his family and society, and pit himself against his own world. But once out there on the far side of the moon, where an isolated band kept pushing Earth's call letters into the void, the picture changed startlingly, shockingly. For Cave learned the truth that had been held back from a placid world for so long....

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: NY Ace G-691 1968.; 1St Edition edition (1968)
• ASIN: B000LTOEDY
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,567,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is There Anybody Out There, February 22, 2006

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Jack Williamson has been writing sci-fi for literally three-quarters of century. I'm only familiar with a limited number of his books, but back in 1967 he really hit the jackpot with this one. Anyone interested in Williamson's large body of work should track down this out-of-print gem. The premise of this novel at first seems pretty typical for old sci-fi, concerning a project by human scientists to contact alien civilizations. Contact is made in faithful sci-fi fashion, but Williamson pulls out a real surprise on the human side of the equation. A white-supremacist organization wishes to defeat all efforts to contact the aliens because that would allow the Earth's minorities to rise up out of subjugation. Another influence on this theme is how ancient cultures on Earth were destroyed when they made contact with the "advanced" new world. I was totally not expecting these heavy themes, along with Williamson's explorations of how various groups of humans would approve or disapprove of a new utopia brought about by a super-advanced alien civilization, based on current structures of power and oppression. Under the rather simplistic science fiction premise, this is a powerfully philosophical work of literature, with some of the most thought-provoking social commentary I've ever seen in old sci-fi. [~doomsdayer520~]