Fifth Planet [Paperback]

Geoffrey Hoyle (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin (1974)
• ASIN: B000UIKVF6
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Set in the future, but very revealing about the past, January 21, 2001

By 

"stylofone" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fifth Planet (Paperback)

Fred Hoyle's scientific pedigree is up front in this vintage novel, co-written with son Geoffrey. The story is based on a classic SF premise - a star, with its own planetary system, is heading towards our own. It passes close enough for earth people to mount an expedition to one of the planets of the visiting star - an earth-like world with signs of plant life detectable from earth. The planet turns out to be inhabited by a vastly superior race of telepathic beings who hide themselves from the earth visitors. One of them takes possession of the mind of an astronaut, and returns to earth to spread a dramatic, and unwanted telepathic warning against the nuclear arms race, before returning on a hijacked spacecraft.

The opening chapters are rich with speculation about the astronomical implications of such an event - it doesn't quite read like fiction in many passages. The problems arise when the book tries to speculate on social changes which might ensue. First and foremost, the role of women in society and relationships is a prominent theme of the novel. The main female character is an empty-headed flirt. One of the expeditions also includes the first ever woman astronaut. She was not included for her skills as a cosmonaut, rather because her looks make her a propaganda coup for the eastern bloc. It is remarkable that this book was published in 1963 - the same year the Russian space program sent Valentina Tereshkova into orbit on Vostok 6 - but in the Hoyles' imagination, it takes more than 100 years before a woman is sent into space.

Harder to predict, from their vantage point of the early 1960s, is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. It's well and truly raging more than 100 years hence in this book. The competition between East and West to reach the Fifth Planet is as fierce as the space race was at the time the novel was written. And the nuclear nightmare which unfolds at the end of FIFTH PLANET is a gripping passage.

It's at the end of the novel where FIFTH PLANET comes into its own. The mysterious events on the planet are reminiscent of Clarke/Kubrick's 2001 in their eerieness; the implications of a telepathic extraterrestrial visitor to earth are imaginatively explored; and the Hoyles' anti-nuclear stance is admirable. At a time when cold-war sci-fi was still prominent, and the peace movement still years away from its peak, the Hoyles' here have made an impresive achievement.

Reading my musty Penguin paperback copy of this book, I was reminded of the wonderful hours I spent with John Wyndham's novels, when I was growing up in the 1970s. Wyndham was never into such "hard" science, and his social barometer was always admirable, always accurate. But FIFTH PLANET is reminiscent of the SF of that era; it's a great exploration of IDEAS. Yes, it's dated in parts, but hindsight for me, makes this a nice period piece, rather than ruining the novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 2nd part is good, 1st part is dull, February 5, 2008

By 

Christopher Hivner (Dallastown, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fifth Planet (Paperback)

An entire solar system, sun and planets, is hurtling toward our own. There is an earth-like planet and both the Americans and the Russians decide to send a ship to land on the planet they've named Achilles to explore it. The Russian ship cannot take off to come home so the crews collaborate. By the time they leave Achilles, 3 of the combined crew are dead and 2 others are insane because of strange incidents on the planet. When they return home it turns out one of themen was being inhabited by a creature from Achilles. The creature passes into another person and begins to do its own exploring of Earth.

Fifth Planet has an interesting premise and is a good read once the rockets take off and land on Achilles and return. The first part of the book however, is rather dull. Too much talk of politics and sociology. These are things that play into the ending but they're laid out in an uninteresting way. The interplay between the U.S and Russia is also dated. The story takes place in 2087 but the book was written in 1963 so it has a very cold war feel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining visitor, April 6, 2001

By 

A. G. Plumb "Greg Plumb" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fifth Planet (Paperback)

This is a good novel and I enjoyed rereading it. Like Brian Aldiss' 'An Age' which I reviewed recently it has the rather coy device of referring to the lead female character by her first name whereas all other characters are referred to by their family names. Generally the novel is not at its strongest in its human relations. Many of the ideas kept recycling other things I'd read too - notably 'Solaris' by Stanislav Lem and 'Drop Dead' by Clifford Simak. The vision of an apparently virginal and pastoral world is very captivating - recovering our lost environment? - and hidden mysteries add to this. In 'Fifth Planet' the Misters (Mrs!!!) Hoyle - maybe it should be the Mr Hoyles - have created a novel in three parts - the preliminaries, the journey and exploration and the aftermath. For me, I felt very flat when they characters fled Achilles with all the mysteries unexplained (which makes me think of another wonderful Simak short story - 'Limiting Factor') but the last third does become more engaging despite the melodrama.