Giants series

The Giants series

Cover of Inherit The Stars, the first book in the Series.
Author James P. Hogan
Genre Science fiction, space opera, hard science fiction
Publisher Del Rey Books, Baen Books
Published 1977 – 2005
No. of books 5 (List of books)

The Giants series is a group of five science fiction novels by James P. Hogan, beginning with his first novel, 1977's Inherit the Stars.

Origins

In the introduction to the omnibus edition The Two Moons, Hogan revealed that the first book, Inherit the Stars, was inspired by a viewing of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he enjoyed until the ending. Complaining about what he saw as the confusing, effects-heavy conclusion at work afterwards, each of his colleagues bet him five pounds that he couldn't write and publish a science-fiction novel. The result was Inherit the Stars, which was published by Del Rey Books in May 1977. He later asked Arthur C. Clarke about the meaning of the ending of 2001, to which Clarke reportedly replied that while the ending of Hogan's Inherit the Stars made more sense, the ending of 2001 made more money.[1]

Background

The series is notable for its creation of a substantial prehistory of the Solar System, stretching back millions of years. This was further expanded in later books to include an alternate universe version of the setting.[2]

Primary Chronology

Secondary Chronology

Events in this alternate chronology are identical up to 50,020 years ago. In this chronology, the Minerva Mission used timeline lensing generated by the Shapieron to cause the Jevlenese to disappear from the alternate timeline universe without a trace. Cerios and Lambia gave up the conflict and disarmed to concentrate on a space program for their mutual benefit. The Shapieron then returned to its own universe.

Books in the series

The series originally was planned as a trilogy published between 1977 and 1981 but was later expanded with Entoverse and Mission to Minerva.[3]

  1. Inherit the Stars, May 1977, ISBN 0-345-30107-2
  2. The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, May 1978, ISBN 0-345-29048-8
  3. Giants' Star, July 1981, ISBN 0-345-28771-1
  4. Entoverse, October 1991, ISBN 1-85723-002-7
  5. Mission to Minerva, January 2005, ISBN 0-7434-9902-6

Hogan remarked in his introduction to "The Two Worlds" that there was a possibility of a sixth book but added that there was "nothing definite in the works".[4]

Omnibus editions

Several omnibus editions and collections of the novels were assembled during its run.

Reception

The reception of the series has been divided; the original trilogy is generally well received, while the later books have been seen as unnecessary additions, suffering from many of the faults of Hogan's later work. In John Clute's article on Hogan's work, he first considered Inherit the Stars, noting "the exhilarating sense it conveys of scientific minds at work on real problems and ... the genuinely exciting scope of the sf imagination it deploys." However, he described the magical aspects of the Entoverse as "nonsense" and complained that the attempted rescue of Minerva was unsatisfying, adding that there was a "willingness on Hogan's part to re-activate sequences that had come to a natural halt." However, he concluded that "the sequence as a whole remains his best work."[5]

James Nicoll remembered enjoying Inherit the Stars when he was a teenager but he had stopped reading the sequence after the first three books, as "[n]othing I have heard about Entoverse (the one I missed) makes me want to hunt it down." He went on to write a derisive early review of Mission to Minerva, where he concluded that "[o]verall, there was an ok novella trying to escape from this. Nothing in this book beyond the identity of the author required it to be so very, very bad."[6]

In 1981, Inherit the Stars won the Seiun Award for Best Foreign Language Novel of the Year and Entoverse went on to win the 1994 Seiun Award in the same category. A manga adaptation by Yukinobu Hoshino was published in 2011-2012 in Japan, which won the Seiun Award of Comics category in 2013.

References

  1. Hogan, James P. (April 2006). The Two Moons. Baen Books. pp. 1–7. ISBN 1-4165-0936-4.
  2. Dr. Attila Torkos. "Torkos Giants' Chronology". James P. Hogan. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  3. James P. Hogan. "Bibliography". Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  4. Hogan, James P. (September 2007). The Two Worlds. Baen Books. pp. 1–7. ISBN 1-4165-3725-2.
  5. "Hogan, James P.". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3rd Edition. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
  6. "A Short But Unkind Review". More Words, Deeper Hole. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
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