Deepdrive

An ultimate Science Fiction Novel, an ultimate Adventure Novel, and an ultimate Novel, period. Set centuries in the future (the cover flap claims it occurs in the 21st century, but it's obvious reading the book that considerably more time has passed between the present and the novel's time-frame)with eleven alien races now inhabiting the Solar System in addition to humanity, all of them towering above humanity in technological advancement, one aspect of which is that they each possess "Deepdrive" technology, the title of the book, the means to travel faster than light, and one of humanity's holy grails. These aliens are Truly Alien; among the more familiar-seeming are glowing 'Turtles' that now swim through the seas of Ganymede; Venus, in addition to being home to human cities now that it has a cooler surface and oxygen atmosphere, also has Bgarth, super-giant cyborg wormlike beings who terraformed the world and whose nerve cells interact directly with the 'reaction site' that produces Venus's new air - one character early on goes so far as to say that "in one sense, you can think of the current atmosphere of Venus as a Bgarth thought" (talk about exotic concepts in sci-fi!). Other species, in both physiology and culture are as alien or in some cases even more so, and most seem to have large cults of human acolytes, even worshippers. Human society too is dynamically different; it's not just the Earth of today with awesome new technologies added in, and we see not only a picture of human culture at the time "Deepdrive" actually takes place, but we get glimpses of the changes it underwent through the previous centuries, including prior to first contact with the first extraterrestrials to enter the system. In fact, we get tantalizing Glimpses of so much - different aspects of what's going on on Earth; the situation on Mercury with its own alien colonizers; SO much, that this can't be the only book written in this continuity. It would be a great deprivation of literature if the author didn't carry on with at least a couple more books to explore some of what's been only hinted at. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'd like to see this become a whole universe of novels, in the sense of how "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and even Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" books are being done following their creator's passing on: different authors contributing different novels in different locales, different time periods, different species getting the spotlight, even totally different characters; the concept is so vast it could easily be done. I would love to see an entire novel taking place at the time of the legendary first contact. If more authors were to contribute to this full line (though Jablokov is obviously the first choice to write as many of the pivotal novels as possible)I would nominate Piers Anthony and Kathy Tyers, for starters. There is so much left unsaid and undiscovered, there is no limit as to how one could expand on this first en

When I was a kid, not that long ago, one could still read, without too much suspension of disbelief, science fiction set in the Solar System, where people traveled around from Mars to Venus and met fun and interesting alien species. Alas, NASA killed off that genre. But Jablokov makes a fair attempt to revive it with Deepdrive.His gambit is to imagine a future where the Solar System has been colonized by not one but 11 alien species. (You don't meet most of these creatures--do I detect the beginning of a series?) They've settled down in various places--some burrowing under Venus' terraformed crust, some swimming in the seas of Ganymede, some tunneling into various asteroids. When's the last time your read an SF book where there was something worth visiting going on on Mercury?The aliens are intriguing, too--though they come in many varieties, mostly they seem to rely on biotechnology for most of their needs. Symbiosis seems to be the big galactic fashion, and the way humans fit into this ecosystem was compelling.The characters are pretty three-dimensional, or at least solidly two-dimensional. In fact, their relationships give the book a lot of its drive, and when they split up roughly halfway through, things sort of slow down. Still, I did not find this a hard book to get through.

While Deepdrive starts out too frantic and snatches at some unearned emotion at the climax, in between there is plenty to make up for that. Jablakov has read his Bester and early Dick--this is wide-screen baroque in the grand manner and as fast-moving a novel as you'll find. It'll be a long time before you forget Soph and her smart luggage--and those color-coordinated Eos covers and bindings do brighten up a room!