Book Review: Exodus by Jean Hackensmith & Joseph Mcdowell

Reviewed by Kathy L. Brown

Can Earth’s wisest leaders, brightest scientists, and most innovative technicians ensure humanity’s survival? 

Exodus presents the reader with the highest of high-stakes situations: a wandering neutron star will destroy the solar system, including the planet Earth, within fifty years of its first discovery. The book opens in 2023, and preparations for a small cadre of human refugees to leave Earth are almost complete. But the gravitational effects of the approaching star are beginning to cause a range of natural disasters. 

Events of the last few years before departure comprise the plot, which focuses on the chief astrophysicist, Garrett Long. His father started the work on the propulsion technology to take huge, 10,000-person capacity spaceships to distant planets, and Garrett must finish the job. Most of the project challenges stem from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and epic floods affecting the underground spaceship construction site, but Garrett has his fair share of interpersonal conflicts as well. He holds a colleague responsible for his father’s death in a test-flight explosion, a man with whom must work closely. Garret also loves one of his subordinate physicists, Jennifer, who rebuffs his advances.

The novel’s setting is confined to the US spaceship construction site and its environs. Characters are in contact with world leaders and scientists, so we hear what is going on with the evacuation effort on other continents, and news feeds tell the scientists and the reader of the increasing chaos of the outside world. These bits of news work well to ground the technical aspects of the story with the human consequences of the terrible situation.

The story question, “How will a tiny remnant of humankind travel to a new planet?” merges nicely with the main character’s question, “Will Garrett make the evacuation happen in time?” 

Setbacks, such as a cataclysmic flood swamping the area around the construction site, are highly dramatic, well-paced, and tense. However, each problem is solved successfully and fairly quickly, and the team moves on to the next obstacle. Thus, the novel feels, in some ways, like a series of linked short stories.

Most of the book’s characters are the scientists and political leaders in charge of the project. The arrival of a few regular folks, refugees who have barely survived the ill effects of the societal breakdown outside the compound, opens up the story. Their heartbreaking plight puts a human face on the anonymous mass of suffering described in the high-level reports those in the compound receive. 

Of this group, Ben is a stand-out character—a neutron star denier (and Star Trek fan), who adapts quite well to spaceship life. When his daughter Jennifer tells him the neutron star will destroy the planet, Ben counters, “Nah. That’s just a bunch of bunk.”And his reaction to the Exodus plan is similarly folksy. “’I hear all the big muckity-mucks are there. Even the President.’ ‘Garrett designed the warp engine that will make travel to a new planet possible,’ Jennifer added. To Garrett’s surprise, he could hear the pride in her voice—pride over his accomplishment. Ben smiled, his skepticism obvious. ‘A warp drive, huh? So, do you have Captain Kirk stashed aboard that spaceship of yours, too?’”

While the novel centers on the technical and logistical aspects of evacuating 100,000 people from Earth and settle them on a distant planet, many intriguing issues are sorted long before the narrative starts. In this story world, fifty years of resources have gone into the evacuation project. Questions ranging from “Can this star be stopped?” to “Is this plan the best choice for everyone?” are possible aspects of plot for another book, not this one. For example, DNA assessment, personality testing, and psychological assessment are used to choose the evacuees, butut someone already determined the characteristics best suited for spacefaring. Rank, intelligence, and proximity to power does have its privilege, which is realistic and acknowledged in the story, but might bear more scrutiny. 

Exodus is built around technology and makes the complex ideas central to the book understandable to the non-scientific reader. Jennifer explains the source of the test flight explosion to Garrett, and the reader, “’See that spike? Now look here.’ She indicated another spot. ‘There was a slight variance in the transfer manifold readings from the moment the warp drive was powered up, but it spiked here—’ she pointed to the first spot again ‘—just before Aquarius was destroyed. Could that mean that energy was escaping the manifold?’”

Readers who become engrossed in tense, high-stakes situations and innovative technological solutions for near-impossible challenges will find plenty to enjoy in Exodus.

---

Thank you for reading Kathy L. Brown’s book review of Exodus by Jean Hackensmith & Joseph Mcdowell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.