Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Tenth Planet
Del Rey, New York, 1999
ISBN 0-345-42140-x
Monika says:
During an excavation archeologist Edwin Bradshaw encounters strange
layers of soot that occurred about every 2006 years. Bradshaw, whose
scientific reputation is damaged because of an earlier research project
that only earned him the scorn of his peers, decides to consult a
colleague. Much to his surprise Leo Cross seems to be willing to accept
his expertise. Together the two men try to unravel the mystery and find
references to a "blackness" that regularly comes over the Earth
in old legends of various cultures. With the help of an astronomer they
discover a horrifying fact: Whatever caused the layers of soot to appear
will happen again in the course of the following year. They have exactly
240 days to prepare for the event.
Our solar system still is far from being fully explored. Even if NASA
already sent probes to the outer planets and made it possible for us to
see pictures of Neptune and Uranus it is still not certain whether far out
beyond the orbit of Pluto there isn’t hiding a tenth planet or invisible
companion of our sun. In the Eighties, for example, paleontologists David
Raup and Jack Sepkoski presented their "Nemesis" Theory, stating
that a black star, so far invisible to our telescopes, crosses through the
Oort cloud every 26 million years, deflecting comets and catapulting them
into our solar system. This phenomenon is supposed to have caused the big
waves of extinctions on Earth. Scientists discovered this periodicity of
26 million years in their fossil research.
The theory of the tenth planet is a popular subject for books in the
area of controversial knowledge, so it’s not very surprising that
science fiction authors are also fascinated with it. In this particular
book the subject is treated quite well. Especially the first part of THE
TENTH PLANET offers plenty of suspense. The search for the cause of the
soot layers keeps the readers on their toes, but once it becomes clear
what causes them, tension is failing rapidly. The arrival of the aliens,
supposedly the climax of the book, isn’t quite what we were led to
expect. Still, THE TENTH PLANET is a quick and entertaining read with its
250 pages. The story is written as a trilogy. Part two THE TENTH PLANET:
OBLIVION has already been published. |
Any comments? Write us:
Monika Hübner
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