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From: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: PROCYON'S PROMISE (spoiler on LIFE PROBE)
Message-ID: <6477@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 16:04:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6477
Posted: Thu Aug  1 16:04:34 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 00:59:59 EDT
Reply-To: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 68

I just read Michael McCollum's new book, PROCYON'S PROMISE.  This is a
sequel to his novel LIFE PROBE.

Short review:  A good book.  Believable characters.  Very believable
depictions of spaceship life and FTL technology.  Mostly good writing.

McCollum does have somewhat of a tendency to skim over events here and
there which he doesn't deem critical to his plot line -- and when this
occurs, he gets a bit boring -- but such "history book" sections are,
happily, relatively short and relatively few.

So read PROCYON'S PROMISE.  (But read LIFE PROBE first.)

A more detailed description will require some "giveaway" of the plot of
LIFE PROBE.  If you haven't yet read LIFE PROBE, you may wish to skip
the rest of this message so as not to spoil your enjoyment of that book.




OK.  If you've reached this point, I will assume that you've either
already read LIFE PROBE, or else that you're one of those people who
skips to the end of a book to see whether or not "the butler did it".

At the end of LIFE PROBE, Earth is launching a "generation ship" to
Procyon -- the apparent seat of a civilization with faster-than-light
travel.  Under the guidance of SURROGATE (the surviving remnant of a
Maker life probe which visited Earth), the human crew -- and their
descendants -- hope to make contact with the civilization on Procyon,
learn the secret of FTL travel, and then locate the Maker's home planet
in order to fulfill the Probe's original mission.

(The probe, as you will remember, was severely damaged in a terrorist
attack by a minority faction on Earth -- and the surviving portion of
the probe, while retaining vast amounts of Maker knowledge, did not know
where the Makers were.  Indeed, SURROGATE was dissuaded from destroying
itself completely in a fit of despair only when its human associates
promised to help it find its home civilization again.)

PROCYON'S PROMISE takes place about 300 years after the original colo-
nists left for Procyon.  The colonists' descendants were expected to
return to Earth after about slightly over a century with the secret of
FTL travel -- but they never did.  Earth, in the meantime, has benefited
greatly from the vast store of Maker knowledge and sentient-computer
technology -- and has all but forgotten about the Procyon expedition.

Well, as it turns out, the colonists didn't find anyone in the Procyon
system after all -- but they did find remnants of an abandoned starship
base, along with enough artifacts and information to construct an FTL
ship.  They have absolutely no idea how it works -- but it does work.
And they're coming back to their ancestral home to enlist Earth's aid
in mounting a mission to locate the Makers and keep "The Promise".

The only problem is, not only could Earth's leadership really care less
about The Promise by now, but quite a few people in high places see the
Procyon colonists as an unwitting threat to the safety of the human race
-- and plot to stop them from carrying on their quest, lest the secret
of FTL travel accidentally fall into the hands of some hostile race.

Now that your appetite has been whetted, go out and read the book.

Oh -- let me add that the ending of PROCYON'S PROMISE leaves things wide
open for yet another sequel.
-- 
Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683
	3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA
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