Attention all ‘Star Trek’ fans, here’s a book I think you’ll enjoy. Really, ‘Prelude to Extinction’ the first novel by experimental physicist Andreas Karpf reads very much like a good episode of that sci-fi classic. Captain Jack Harrison of the Earth vessel Magellan is absolutely cut from the same cloth as James T. Kirk and his first officer George Palmer and science officer Don Martinez will often remind you of Mister Spock and ‘Bones’ McCoy.
And like an episode of ‘Star Trek’ the story line in ‘Prelude to Extinction’ is as much action-adventure as it is sci-fi. Even so Author Karpf manages to give the star ship Magellan a good hard feel, all the technology is based on extrapolation from present knowledge so you can actually imagine Magellan as a real ship. This is very much like the feel sci-fi fans got when they first traveled aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise back in 1967, deliberately so I’m certain.
Now don’t get me wrong, ‘Prelude to Extinction’ is not fan fiction. The novel is set in a completely different imaginary reality with completely different characters. It just all feels familiar, Mister Karpf’s style is right out of the style of the original ‘Star Trek’ series and it shows.
The story takes place in the year 2124, just a hundred years from now as the first Earth starship Magellan is entering the Epsilon Eridani star system at a distance of a little over 10 light years from our Solar System. Now astronomers know that E Eridani is a bit smaller and cooler than the Sun, and that it has several planets orbiting it. The fourth of those planets, E Eridani D orbits within the star’s ‘habitable zone’ where liquid water can exist and therefore is a potential home for life.
In the novel recent observations by telescopes on the Moon have found conflicting evidence for the existence of intelligent life on D. This is the mission of the Magellan, to discover if there is a civilization on E Eridani D.
What the crew of the Magellan find is the ruins of a single city, destroyed apparently by violence along with a strange alien artifact in orbit around the planet. It isn’t long thereafter that the Earthlings are caught in the middle of an interstellar war between two much more advanced alien species, a war that could quickly engulf the Earth and all of humanity.
I do have a few problems with ‘Prelude to Extinction’, for one thing there is a dry stretch about one quarter into the book between where the crew are beginning to realize what’s going on and their first meeting with aliens. Then there are the aliens themselves, one species is just too goody-goody while the other are too bloodthirsty, both just a bit too cartoonish. Finally in the battle sequences Captain Harrison comes off as a bit too heroic, so much so he makes Captain Kirk seem like a pansy.
‘Prelude to Extinction’ isn’t a profound work of SF that examines humanity’s place in the Universe like ‘Childhood’s End’ or ‘The Foundation Trilogy’. Neither does it try to illustrate how we humans are going to have to learn to live on the new worlds we explore like ‘The Martian.’ No, ‘Prelude to Extinction’ doesn’t pretend to be anything more than an action adventure Sci-Fi novel and in that respect it succeeds. If you’re in the mood for an enjoyable ‘Star Trek style’ story you should check out ‘Prelude to Extinction’ by Andreas Karpf.