In Our Stars: The Doomed Earth (Part 1)
Jack Campbell
Ace Books
Copyright 2024 by John G. Henry

The Earth Guard is tasked with protecting the space lanes in the inner Solar System. Intercepting ne’er-do-wells, clearing debris that might interfere with travel, and generally convincing people that it’s safe to travel between the planets. But the Guard is corrupt. Not in the way that everyone’s on the take (though that certainly happens at the highest levels); they are corrupt in that, at the command level, they are lazy. Anything that significantly disrupts the normal routine is A Problem. Anything that makes extra work is A Problem. And Problems are to be dealt with as quickly and easily as possible, before they become even bigger Problems.

So when the Vigilant, on a very routine patrol, comes across a HUGE hunk of debris from a spacecraft of unknown design, that’s A Problem. And when Lt. Kayl Owen, leading the team checking it out finds a survivor, that’s also A Problem. When the survivor says she’s Lt. Selene Genji of the Unified Fleet and claims to come from forty years in the future, well, that’s a Much Bigger Problem. And when she says she knows about the aliens who have just arrived in the Solar System, partly because she’s got some of their genetic material in her, well, that’s A Serious Problem that calls for a Solution with Extreme Prejudice. And if that troublemaker Kayl Owen, who believes her story and has take a liking to her, can be dealt with at the same time, well….

This is one of those rare birds in the SF book business: The first half of a duology, that doesn’t shy away from letting you know it’s the first half. I suspect that on reviewing the manuscript, Campbell’s (a pen name for John G. Henry) editor told him “Look, there’s a heck of a lot of story in here – like over 400 pages worth, maybe even 500. You could pad it out to a trilogy, but that would take so much padding that it would be obvious and sales would suffer. How about making it into two books?”

And there’s plenty of action in here. Kayl is resourceful and has the usual Hero’s Luck, which fortunately doesn’t get used too often. That his first unplanned arrival on Earth happens to be within a short distance of the home of an “aunt” who knows people who knows people who can help him (there seems to be something of a large underground movement of civil dissidents, along with a lot of ways to circumvent the “security” tracking and surveillance)…..

Needless to say, the pair fall in love. For Selene, this is a problem. While the alien genetics give her some minor superpowers (modest night vision and unarmed combat skills that would impress Black Widow), they might also cause uncertain serious health problems at any time (she was an experiment). She also wants desperately to prevent the destruction of Earth that sent her into the past (it wasn’t just the End of Civilization; the planet was actually blown apart by a bomb set by a fanatical religious sect – the quantum mechanics of the bomb created the time shock that sent Selene back). But if she succeeds, doesn’t that mean she won’t exist in the past anymore?

Yeah, we’re getting in to some serious time paradox stuff here.

As I was getting to the end of this book, I couldn’t help but wonder if everything they were doing was just speeding up the process. One of the things that surprised Selene in the beginning was that the Earth Guard existed; in her time, it had collapsed from internal decay a decade or so ago. But now, she and Kayl are doing things that make the corruption and general uselessness more obvious. And as far as the genetic hybrid thing, it turns out that by Plot Convenience, Kayl’s sister works at a lab doing genetic research. OF COURSE she starts thinking about the possibilities….

Kayl and Selene are likable and sympathetic characters; so are the people who help him. There’s little in the way of obvious padding, and the book ends with the pair enjoying a brief respite as they are in transit to their next destination. Had I not been informed by the jacket copy that it was the first of two parts, I might have thrown the book at the wall in frustration.

I think I’ll keep my eyes open for Part 2.