Wheelers (Hardcover)

On Jupiter's eighth moon Callisto, Prudence proves her success in Egypt was no fluke. She uncovers WHEELERS under the ice of the moon. She has no idea who junk-piled them and what their functions were. Prudence immediately returns to Earth to declare her find. Meanwhile, the moons of Jupiter defy gravity and somehow reposition themselves. In turn, the realignment leads to a change on the orbit of a comet that now targets planet earth as part of its orbital projectory. Apparently, sentient beings inhabit the Jupiter planetary system and they are now defending themselves from the destructive comet even if it means destroying Earth. Somehow, the desperate earthlings must communicate with this alien race to save their planet from the comet's destruction.

WHEELERS is an exciting science fiction thriller that brings into focus a future earth and an incredible look at an alien culture. The exciting story line is well written, but contains a bit too many subplots even though each one of these are fun to read. Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen show their abilities to write a futuristic novel especially when describing the residents of the Jupiter planetary system.

Harriet Klausner

Now, with Wheelers these two non-fiction giants have turned their hand to story telling with, it must be admitted, mixed success.

It is the twenty third century. The world is recovering from a technology meltdown caused by a generation of "smart" computers that proved to be too smart for their own good. The world is now quite under populated and the Moon and the asteroids are largely the province of a curious Zen Buddhist offshoot cult who make a very rich living mining them.

Prudence Odingo is an ex-archaeologist and something of a recluse. Her early career was ruined partly by her own headstrong behaviour and partly by the wheelings and dealings of her post-graduate supervisor. She has spent many of the years since then in space. She returns to Earth from an expedition to Callisto where she has excavated wheeled artefacts that seem to be more than 100,000 years old.

In a dramatic courtroom scene, the wheelers come abruptly to life and provide evidence of their extraterrestrial origins by gliding smoothly from the courtroom on anti-gravity beams. It takes the world by storm.

But a new crisis arises. A comet from the Oort cloud is heading towards the inner solar system. It seems likely that it will collide with Jupiter. To the consternation of observers on Earth, the four inner moons of Jupiter suddenly change their orbits and their altered gravitational influence diverts the comet. Now it is heading directly for Earth.

It seems obvious that some alien intelligence (probably connected with the Wheelers, given that they were discovered on one of Jupiter's moons) is manipulating the comets. Perhaps it is a declaration of war. Prudence and the Zen Buddhists and the academic who once destroyed her career are all charged with making contact with the aliens and attempting to persuade them to modify the Jupiter moon orbits again in order to prevent the comet hitting the Earth. It turns into a nail biting race against time...

It's a great plot, with great characters and the tension is admirably maintained right through to the end (will the comet hit the Earth or won't it?). Certainly the book has a lot going for it. Unfortunately the authors inexperience with fiction shows - they fall so much in love with the ideas the novel dramatises that they can't resist the urge to explain in far too much detail and consequently the book fills up with great big wodges of infodumps that slow the story down to nothing flat. However I can't condemn it out of hand - both authors are superb writers of non-fiction; brilliant explainers of often complex ideas and the infodumps are quite fascinating in themselves and beautifully written to boot. They just don't belong in a slam-bang novel like this one.

Though the introductory chapters start out appearing only tentatively connected, pursuing multiple storylines that at first seem largely unrelated, it is not long before the authors begin to bind their protagonists' tales together, spinning out their coalescing narrative at an ever increasing pace that soon matches the onrush of climatic events that equally propel towards the book's conclusion. Once the reader enters the climacteric phase of the novel, it is difficult to put down, marred slightly only by the final chapters, which become a summary tidying up of events and characters that seem somewhat a let down after all the excitement preceding. Nonetheless, the authors succeed in investing much of their tale with an ever-increasing suspense that is handled deftly, and which largely offsets any flaws found in the final slowdown of events.

In addition, while a blend of both hard and soft science, the multiple points of view are balanced, as well as well integrated into the plot elements, science and conceptual elements only on occasion dominating at the expense of the storyline. Further, the authors use their tale to delightfully parody contemporary government and beauracracy, as well as academia and the news media, with a sardonic humor reminiscent of authors such as Terry Pratchett, which are bound to raise a chuckle, even if darkly lined, and leaven the narrative throughout.

Even though not a huge fan of science fiction, I found this book enjoyable, and will certainly follow the authors' novels in future---hopefully there will be successors. While, if allowed, I would have given this first effort only 3 and a half stars, I suspect fans of the genre will respond more generously.