If there is anything forums, chat rooms, comments sections, blogs, news reporting, and other media have made us aware of, it's the variety of opinion on what is "right" for humanity. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four
and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World pointed some easy fingers at what is "wrong" for humanity, while others have purported social structures as ideal, holes appearing in them as well. A microcosm of debate in what is "good" for humanity, Jack McDevitt’s 1996 Ancient Shores is not so much a story of
alien discovery, rather humanity’s reaction to it. And what a reaction it is.
Ancient Shores literally opens with the discovery of a yacht buried in the middle of a
North Dakota wheat field. Unearthed and
set up as a tourist attraction in the farmer’s barn, the discovery that its
hull and sails are comprised of an element that does not exist on Earth, and
that it emits a strange green glow at night from power sources unknown, quickly
have the scientific community scrambling for answers. Said answers not easy to swallow, an even
larger wrench is thrown into the perception of reality when a second
unidentifiable object is discovered in a nearby canyon. Turning the small North Dakota community, and
eventually the world, upside down and shaking it, the best manner in which to
put to use the ever-fascinating possibilities of the discoveries becomes as
heated a topic as only humans can argue.
The strange, extra-terrestrial objects only a catalyst, Ancient Shores is predominantly a
presentation of the ripples in society such discoveries could cause. Spiritualists, corporate CEOs, reluctant
physicists, doomsayers, conspiracy theorists, view-hungry crowds, religious
extremists, local hotel owners, foreign diplomats, journalists, and even an
unfortunate graffiti artist are caught in the storm of media and curiosity that
follows upon the strong possibility mankind is not alone. McDevitt formerly involved in the military (a
factor apparent in the prose), the characters representing these facets of
society are rendered in simple yet convincing enough terms. Like the supporting characters in a Coen
brothers’ film, every reader will have known one of them as ‘normal’ members of
society.
Another relatively unique facet of the novel (for a sci fi book, at
least) is its discussion of Native American affairs. The second strange artifact discovered on
Sioux land, several additional layers of political, cultural, and social sensitivity
are applied to those seeking to profit or waylay, view or research what comes
to be known as the Roundhouse. McDevitt
handling the Sioux with poise, there were numerous politicized roads available
but not traveled, much to the book’s benefit.
In the end, Ancient Shores is
solid social sci-fi in a contemporary setting. McDevitt using the discovery of
strange alien artifacts to expose human reaction from myriad viewpoints, the
science fiction bits take a backseat to personal stories paralleling the main
storyline: the fate of the extra-terrestrial objects. The prose perhaps not the most subtly
rendered, and in turn the characters rather blocky, the people described
nevertheless exude enough realism to exist in real life. The story seemingly an amalgam of Le Guin,
Heinlein, Clarke, and other writers of so-called ‘soft science fiction’,
McDevitt has penned a tale that may not break new barriers genre-wise, but
remains engaging enough due to the patient manner in which the plot is unpacked
and the relevance of the human sub-text.
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