“Ancient Heavens” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Robert E. Vardeman (http://www.cenotaphroad.com). Mr. Vardeman has published more than 100 novels of many genre. This is the 7th novel in his “War of Powers” series.

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains minor scenes of Violence. The story is set in 2055-2285. Humanity, in the form of “The Church of Lost Eden”, make the decision to expend their considerable wealth and be the first humans to migrate outside of the Solar System. While this is risky, persecution on Earth leaves them little choice.

Richard Drake is hired to run the long range terraforming operation to make a planet of the Alpha Centauri system ready for the colonists. He and about 300 leave for the 50 year journey. They arrive and spend years beginning the transformation process. The Church, without warning, shows up decades early forcing Drake and his team to find a way to house and feed thousands.

I thought that this was an interesting read of 7.5 hours for this 321 page science fiction novel. This wasn’t the typical science fiction thriller. Most of it was spent dealing with the engineering challenges encountered with terraforming the planet. A lot of time too was spent with dealing with unforeseen problems. It is also a bit unusual in that it spans a period of 230 years. It reads well as a stand alone novel. The cover art is OK. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

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First published in 1989; published digitally by Venture Press on March 26, 2017

Ancient Heavens begins in 2055. A Shi’ite Empire dominates Eurasia, systematically wiping out followers of all other faiths. A resistance group, the Church of Lost Eden, plans a journey to the stars where they can found a new Eden and practice their pacifist religion without fear of oppression. The plan calls for terraforming a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, giving half the planet to the corporation that will do the terraforming.

Things don’t work out quite as planned for the religious folk, causing them to need the planet before it is ready to inhabit. In the grand tradition of science fiction, the story becomes one of scientists concocting brainy schemes to save the bacon of nonscientists. There is a fair amount of hard science in Ancient Heavens and, not being a scientist, about all I can say is that it sounded plausible to me. I assume that real scientists will appreciate the cleverness of the fictional scientists more than I did, but I followed the basic concepts well enough to appreciate that the solutions are, in fact, clever.

Richard Drake is in charge of the terraforming. He’s consumed by the immensity of the task, which causes his pregnant wife to become more than a little dramatic. She wants a successful husband but she doesn’t want to deal with the demands of the career that made him a success. Relationship drama aside, the novel’s value lies in the appreciation it instills of how technically difficult it would be and how long it would take to make an uninhabitable planet inhabitable to humans.

By 2138, the plot takes on even more qualities of a soap opera. Richard has been frozen and thawed and his life on or near the terraformed Nerth has moved in unexpected directions, as has the Church of Lost Eden. The suggestion is that churches manipulate their followers, but they can also be manipulated by their leaders. The novel also illustrates the tendency of religions to condemn and oppress everyone who follows a different religion, or none at all. The pacifist religion, having been oppressed, has become an oppressive religion, again illlustrating a reality that is all too common in the real world.

In 2189, near the end of the novel, Richard learns what transpired on Earth after his departure. It isn’t pretty, but it is an imaginative projection from trends that existed when the novel was written. One of those trends is that corporations continue to gain rights and power, as if they are the equivalent of (or superior to) living organisms.

The family drama is sometimes difficult to believe, but it allows the plot to evolve its themes of power and treachery. The novel ends with a tale of corporate evil that threatens to wipe out human life on Nerth. The novel follows the science fiction tradition of demonstrating how resilient humans — scientists, in particular — can overcome all barriers, whether they are posed by the forces of nature and physics or by other humans. While I didn’t quite buy all of the relationship drama, some of which seemed unduly contrived, I enjoyed the novel as a whole.

RECOMMENDED

Did not finish. Characters felt very weak, compared to the quite decent plot and THAT bugs me a lot while reading ANY novel, regardless of the genre.

Ancient Heavens by Robert E. Vardeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

As I was reading this, I was beset with a number of problems. The first being that it appeared to be tied to Vardeman's fantasy series, the second being that I was only given this book 3 days to read before it gets archived. So, freaking out, I made a couple of conclusions... the first being that I don't have to read the rest because this appears to be straight terraforming SF with no fantasy involved, and the second being a non-starter because I read fast.

That being said, I plowed through it with quite a bit of enjoyment!

This came out 5 years before Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, but it shares SOOO MUCH IN COMMON that I was both nostalgic and rather amazed, making me think about all the other SF authors who had done terraforming fiction with so much science and verve and I just couldn't think of any, so now this guy has got my attention.

Vardeman got so much right! :) Of course, he's working with a nearby star system rather than Mars, but that doesn't matter to me. The fact that he focuses on both story and the science is the thing!

Yes, it kinda felt like a Greek tragedy at times and other times it felt like the blurb was going to make it a lot more cheesy by the end than it really was.. and that's another thing! I do NOT like the blurb here for this novel. It cheapens the fact that so much story actually occurs and the world-building is rather impressive if heavy-handed in places.

I'm giving a lot of that a big long pass, because I remember Red Mars doing a lot of the same damn thing and yet BOTH of these belong in the same category and same level of world-building. Granted, Red Mars is clearly the winner, but I am not going to ignore the fact that this was very decent and comes nearly to the same heights as the other, later, novel.

Hats off! Respect!

On a purely story note, however, there's a number of plot holes I wish weren't there, but none of them are so bad as to make me dislike anything as a whole. :)