Book Review: Exodus by Jean Hackensmith & Joseph Mcdowell

IndieBookView

January 29

Exodus

by Jean Hackensmith & Joseph Mcdowell

Genre: Science Fiction

ISBN: 9798867037307

Print Length: 315 pages

Reviewed by Kathy L. Brown

Exodus presents the reader with the highest of high-stakes situations: a wandering neutron star will destroy the solar system, including the planet Earth, within fifty years of its first discovery. The book opens in 2023, and preparations for a small cadre of human refugees to leave Earth are almost complete. But the gravitational effects of the approaching star are beginning to cause a range of natural disasters.

Events of the last few years before departure comprise the plot, which focuses on the chief astrophysicist, Garrett Long. His father started the work on the propulsion technology to take huge, 10,000-person capacity spaceships to distant planets, and Garrett must finish the job. Most of the project challenges stem from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and epic floods affecting the underground spaceship construction site, but Garrett has his fair share of interpersonal conflicts as well. He holds a colleague responsible for his father's death in a test-flight explosion, a man with whom must work closely. Garret also loves one of his subordinate physicists, Jennifer, who rebuffs his advances.

The novel's setting is confined to the US spaceship construction site and its environs. Characters are in contact with world leaders and scientists, so we hear what is going on with the evacuation effort on other continents, and news feeds tell the scientists and the reader of the increasing chaos of the outside world. These bits of news work well to ground the technical aspects of the story with the human consequences of the terrible situation.