Inherit the Stars

This was Hogan's first novel, published when he was 35, and he had yet to learn that readers expect novels to be about people. This novel is about solving a scientific mystery; there are people in it, but they do nothing at all except work together to solve the mystery. There is no love, hostility, sex, crime, or anything like that. Just (mostly male) scientists working on a scientific problem.

It's not a bad book, the mystery and its solution are quite interesting, but it was rather naïve of the author to publish a work of fiction with none of the normal ingredients of fiction.

The mystery is that a corpse is found on the Moon. The corpse seems to be completely human, but he has been lying there for 50,000 years, wearing a spacesuit. If he came from Earth, how is it that no traces of his civilization have been found on Earth? If he came from elsewhere, how could he be human? The mystery is eventually solved, plausibly enough, although the solution is not simple.

Hogan's interest in science is consistent, but his later novels have more human interest than this one.