Neuvel’s debut novel series Sleeping Giants was wonderful.This novel, the start of a new series obviously, is just as irresistible.

What we have here is a small set of aliens that have been on Earth for three thousand years intent on making sure humans take to the stars. There isn’t a huge group: it is a human woman and a daughter who consistently cajole, nudge and intellectually inspire the earthlings whose intelligence and creativity will build the need to get humanity thinking beyond their planetary confines. These women expand their numbers carefully as the human race founds civilizations, science and math. By the time we reach the current mother daughter pair in 1945, there have been only a hundred “Kibsu” as they call themselves.

But it is not all blackboards and stargazing: there’s a Tracker bent on hunting down these woman to keep them from reaching their goal. And their numbers are the same: a human male with one son. I am not certain, however, if the Kibsu are directing human thought to the stars because they need to get off planet or to save humanity from some encroaching danger or why the Tracker wants to keep them from establishing escape velocity from Earth. I’m also not completely certain, but I believe the Tracker is of the same alien race…

So Neuvel focus their current work on the end of the WW II era and making sure Werner von Braun gets to the US to help launch America’s space program. They also make sure Korolev and others in Stalin’s USSR also get their Sputniks in space…. Because, of course, the Russians got into orbit before the US and so pushed our nascent space program into high gear. And more importantly, the Kibsu want to know where they are from, as they’ve lost that information over the years.

This is a great read and hard to put down. ~~ Sue Martin

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