Argonaut by Stanley Schmidt
01/10/2003 . Source: Rachel Broome 

pub: TOR. 333 page hardback. Price: $15.95 (US), $22.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-312-87727-7.

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This novel concerns three New Yorkers: Lester Ordway - a retired electrical engineer, Pilar Ramirez - a medical technologist and Maybelle Terwilliger - an entomologist.
The story begins with the seemingly unrelated incidents of an unscheduled space shuttle exploding on re-entry and a series of mysterious bug attacks.

Two of the victims of these bug attacks, Lester and Pilar, team up to find out what's going on. They manage to capture a new bug and take it to Maybelle, who discovers it is no bug at all but a made object far in advance of what human technology is capable of.

When these three try to investigate further they come under attack from the owners of this technology and so seeing a possible link with the destruction of the space shuttle, go to the military to report their findings. After initially being ignored, they are then roped in to help the government defend against this alien threat.

My main problem with this book is that the three protagonists are stuck in a bunker for more than half the book. This would have been fine if it had been a tiny, dirty, constantly under imminent threat bunker - to ratchet up a bit of 'Das Boot' style tension but large well-appointed bunkers aren't very tense environments. Also, a retired engineer, a medical technologist and an entomologist aren't important enough to be fully in the loop or decision-making. So we are left with over 150 pages of not a hell of a lot happening at all.

Other problems include: The way characters would see big neon ringed clues, note the neon ringed clues, but not think 'Oh perhaps the neon ringed clue could shed some light on this problem' for another 100 pages of pointless temporising.
The fact that with an alien threat to the whole world hanging over our heads there is not one non-American character - even by telephone, in the whole book.

The attitude to nanotechnology as a cure all. We have no idea how our own brains work yet, the idea that aliens could figure it all out in a few days just because they have access to nanotechnology just isn't very believable to me.

Finally, it doesn't even end properly. The last couple of chapters are a set-up for the sequel. The last sentence is, "And she thought, with a mixture of exhilaration and awe and humility beyond any she had ever known, The adventure begins."
The adventure begins. Seriously !?!

However loads of people do seem to have really liked this book. There's a whole jacket full of good quotes. Maybe they're seeing something I'm not but call me a cynic, I can't help wondering whether Schmidt's position as editor of ANALOG magazine has anything to do with them.

Rachel Broome