New Earth by Ben Bova

O.K., # 1,  I have to come clean and state that I am, and have always been (since age 11), a SciFi devotee. 

Over the last half-century, I would go back periodically and try again, whoever was the flavor of the decade.  I read all of the new sub-genres.  I am a believer in the future.  I was a “Dune” freak until Herbert’s stuff was strung out too far.  Poul Anderson kept to the classic genre, but grew stale.  He was no E.E. Doc Smith, nor Heinlein.  Frederik Pohl raised the bar with the HeeChe Saga, but he, too, had just a single innovation, moving beyond Asimov, but which eventually ran dry.  Carl Sagan was the type of author that didn’t over-reach: not a SciFi writer, he wrote a great book and didn’t milk it.  Michael Crichton was another of these guys, a professional writer who takes a great stab at moving SciFi forward.  My current voice of the future is William Gibson, who may only go forward ten to twenty years, but that’s the equivalent of decades for those 30’s-50’s SciFi writers.

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Bova is a middle of the road author who has ground out over 50 books in the SciFi genre.  His ideas aren’t new, the primary premise of the book is a warning about global warming.  His secondary thrust is a plea to move away from violent solutions to the problems of humanity: no war, no hatred, no guns. 

The first half of the novel pays homage to Lost Horizon, a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a movie, also called Lost Horizon, in 1937 by director Frank Capra. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.   Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity.  As in the book and movie, the others in the research expedition to “New Earth” don’t initially agree with the diplomat.  They view things from their commitments to the seven deadly sins.

The second half of the story starts with the lessons of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”.  .

A small crew of Earthlings has arrived at an impossible world after traveling 8.6 light years.  It was all a ruse their hominoid hosts admit, “just to pique your interest enough to come and have tea with us.”  “and, by the way, while you’re digging into that scrumptious scone, I’d like to also remind you and you kind that peace and serenity is good and that war and hatred is bad: so much so that your entire civilization may be destroyed if you don’t change your ways, and that’s why we’re having this little chat.

There’s an unacknowledged co-author with an undeveloped sub-plot that could lead to “New Earth II”.  All good writing – no surprises.