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Genesis Quest #1
The Genesis Quest
After intercepting a message from Earth, Nar scientists have learned the secret of human life. The alien species understands everything about human technology and culture and uses this knowledge to build on each breakthrough until they succeed in re-creating humans. Now they encourage their "pets" to evolve within the alien community and learn the mysteries of the galaxy, but prohibit any knowledge of the planet Earth itself. Bram has always dreamed of traveling to the forbidden planet. Although Earth is millions of miles away, the bioengineer is determined to discover the truth about his species and the land that has been kept a secret his whole life. Bram must discover a way to unveil the truth and see the homeland he has been denied.
478 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1986
36 people are currently reading
387 people want to read
About the author
Donald Moffitt
23 books27 followersDonald Moffitt was born in Boston and now lives in rural Maine with his wife, Ann, a native of Connecticut. A former public relations executive, industrial filmmaker, and ghostwriter, he has been writing fiction on and off for more than twenty years under an assortment of pen names, including his own, chiefly espionage novels and adventure stories in international settings. His first full-length science-fiction novel and the first book of any genre to be published under his own name was The Jupiter Theft (Del Rey, 1977).
"One of the rewards of being a public relations man specializing in the technical end of large corporate accounts," he says, "was being allowed to hang around on the fringes of research being done in such widely disparate fields as computer technology, high-energy physics, the manned space program, polymer chemistry, parasitology, and virology—even, on a number of happy occasions, being pressed into service as an unpaid lab assistant."
He became an enthusiastic addict of science fiction during the Golden Era, when Martians were red, Venusians green, Mercurians yellow, and "Jovian Dawn Men" always blue. He survived to see the medium become respectable and is cheered by recent signs that the fun is coming back to sf.
"One of the rewards of being a public relations man specializing in the technical end of large corporate accounts," he says, "was being allowed to hang around on the fringes of research being done in such widely disparate fields as computer technology, high-energy physics, the manned space program, polymer chemistry, parasitology, and virology—even, on a number of happy occasions, being pressed into service as an unpaid lab assistant."
He became an enthusiastic addict of science fiction during the Golden Era, when Martians were red, Venusians green, Mercurians yellow, and "Jovian Dawn Men" always blue. He survived to see the medium become respectable and is cheered by recent signs that the fun is coming back to sf.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 6, 2017
My idea of a sci fi classic
I read this book I don't know how many years , not long after i graduated from university with a biology degree. It used a lot of pretty up to date concepts in genetic engineering. While time hasn't been entirely kind to the science the story remains just as imaginative and believable as it was all those years ago. This is a universe that doesn't take shortcuts like other science fiction. Whether the Nar are possible they really sound like people I'd be glad to meet. So my paper copy vanished somewhere along the way but I'm glad to find it as an e-book and yes i will definitely be buying second genesis to reread again as well!
I read this book I don't know how many years , not long after i graduated from university with a biology degree. It used a lot of pretty up to date concepts in genetic engineering. While time hasn't been entirely kind to the science the story remains just as imaginative and believable as it was all those years ago. This is a universe that doesn't take shortcuts like other science fiction. Whether the Nar are possible they really sound like people I'd be glad to meet. So my paper copy vanished somewhere along the way but I'm glad to find it as an e-book and yes i will definitely be buying second genesis to reread again as well!
October 26, 2010
Reading this book made me really weirded out by just about every aspect of human culture I happened to focus on or notice, as I tried to abstract it from the setting in which I found it, and imagine what information or impression could possibly be gleaned from it by an entity without all the background knowledge I have.
January 30, 2019
Interesting story and concepts centered on a kind of mopey and weirdly passive protagonist. Story is worth it for the world building, but I kept putting the book down in disgust at how much of a general weenie the main character was being. Having said this I also bought the second book in this series so the story was still compelling.
August 6, 2015
So I've worked my way though this book. I can't say I like it. There are interesting aspects, the underlying concept is interesting...aliens catch the transmission of a genetic code, re-build it, and boom, humans, in another galaxy. I like some of the more out there science fiction concepts... Including the space ships. Moffitt must really have liked Niven, that's all I can say there.
But I can't like the protagonist. The human rebels I can understand...but the protagonist is a wet sponge, with no defining personality or moral center of any type that I can really identify with. He's not one of the pro-earth rebels. He's not loyal enough to the Nar to tell them what some members of his species are plotting. He knows his girlfriend is lying to his face and going behind his back for close to a year and still....lives with her? And then when I go from not respecting him to...hating him. He's worse than everyone else in that room. Because he's the person in the room who DOESN'T believe in the cause.
I can get behind a character who's not likeable because the character makes hard choices. A character that you dislike because he doesn't make ANY? I can't...really embrace that. I can't state this enough. Every horrible thing that happened in this book could have been prevented by the protagonist having one decent bone in his body.
Still, it's a fascinating world, and a fascinating premise.
But I can't like the protagonist. The human rebels I can understand...but the protagonist is a wet sponge, with no defining personality or moral center of any type that I can really identify with. He's not one of the pro-earth rebels. He's not loyal enough to the Nar to tell them what some members of his species are plotting. He knows his girlfriend is lying to his face and going behind his back for close to a year and still....lives with her? And then when I go from not respecting him to...hating him. He's worse than everyone else in that room. Because he's the person in the room who DOESN'T believe in the cause.
I can get behind a character who's not likeable because the character makes hard choices. A character that you dislike because he doesn't make ANY? I can't...really embrace that. I can't state this enough. Every horrible thing that happened in this book could have been prevented by the protagonist having one decent bone in his body.
Still, it's a fascinating world, and a fascinating premise.
z-dnf
January 29, 2022I was initially drawn to the plot description of the sequel to this book and I thought I had better read this first when I realised it was a series. I liked the grand ideas and the world building but it was hard going to read. I persevered for about 150 pages then set it aside as it was too erudite for my tastes AND I found the main character's relationship with his girlfriend annoying (they didn't appear to have anything in common and although she continually spouts ideologies he finds abhorrent this doesn't seem to put him off her). There were very interesting thought experiments about what life would be like for humans who can only make sense of their humanity through the aliens who brought them to life and a limited amount of data received in the message from Original Man. But the analyses were detailed and scientific and I had no idea if they were accurate in any way - from genetics to music. In the end this was too distracting, particularly when the story seemed to be heading towards a typically negative view of humanity - 'humans ruin everything with their ultimately evil natures tending toward conflict and greed'. I've read too many of those stories lately and I prefer stories that focus on humans who are and do good things.
September 3, 2025
Grand is the word that came into my head as I finished the last page. It's a book with a grand idea - that there might exist an utterly benign sapient species. When the Nar detect a message from earth, a planet so far away they knew the people who sent it must be long extinct, they feel it's their duty to resurrect humanity. They try to give the new humans a good life, with as much of their own culture as could be decoded from the great signal. One of the amusing aspects is the things they don't get quite right - like violins and cellos being played with rotating wheels rather than bows. But as the number of humans grow, pockets of dissatisfaction arise. Some are happy to live among the Nar, some want their own territory and one dangerous faction argues for human supremacy and rebels, with disastrous consequences. But at the end, the Nar show themselves to be true to their own morality, instead of doling out punishment, they realise humans need to explore and branch out and they help.
June 6, 2020
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the ideas and general arc of this novel. However, it suffered from an often dumb and rather unlikable hero, as well as dozens of extended descriptions of how people were moving about or what a particular thing looked like or how something operated. Pages and pages and pages of overblown description.
The kindle edition I read was also very poorly edited, with over a dozen mistakes.
I’m starting the next book in the series, only because the beginning came with the first book.
The kindle edition I read was also very poorly edited, with over a dozen mistakes.
I’m starting the next book in the series, only because the beginning came with the first book.
April 3, 2024
Not my favorite
The title character seems completely obtuse regarding his chosen mate who in hindsight is almost entirely superfluous to the meat of the story.
As a result, I ended up skipping huge portions of the book (entire chapters), and not missing any important details of the story.
The title character seems completely obtuse regarding his chosen mate who in hindsight is almost entirely superfluous to the meat of the story.
As a result, I ended up skipping huge portions of the book (entire chapters), and not missing any important details of the story.
December 27, 2022
Rather dull compared to Moffitt's "The Jupiter Theft" but compelling enough to prompt me to buy a copy of its sequel.
April 24, 2019
A lot of politics for such a short book. But very believable if this came to pass. Was really sad there was no audible version!
April 7, 2023
Wasn't for me. Way too many meaningless chapters. Like the small talk at a party. Skipped large bits and then just went to the end. A whole book to show humans suck, no matter where they are.
May 20, 2025
Great book!
June 30, 2013
Interesting concept, and very believable commentary on the essential nature of man (violent), but I just couldn't engage with it on an emotional level.
Bram is the protagonist, a human raised by a long-lived species called the Nar. The Nar look like big flowers with 10 petals - 5 above the waist and 5 below, with a belt of eyes around the waist area. They communicate with each other by touch through highly sophisticated cilia. They can also speak human language. The Nar actually received the human genome and much of its culture from a long-distance transmission sent across the galaxies. They were able to create humans from this information, taking it upon themselves to nurture and provide for this new race on their planets and moons.
Bram was raised by the Nar in an atmosphere of love and acceptance, and eventually joined the Nar in a genetics lab, working on new foodstuffs and other worthy projects. Although the Nar rarely denied humans anything they asked for and were a pacifist race, other segments of humanity were resentful of Nar control over the resources and information. Before too long, some of these humans planned a violent uprising.
This is the tale of how Bram found himself mixed up with these rebels and the chaos and sadness that ensued, and ultimately, the surprising reaction of the Nar.
Great plotline and social commentary, but the lead character was just so passive and uninteresting. He is pushed around, stepped on, fooled, and otherwise treated like a complete doormat for almost the entire book.
Perhaps I have grown too used to characters that are oversized in their determination and talent, or the alternative - characters with a huge, interesting chip on their shoulders. But I found myself irritated by Bram's lack of initiative and desire to go along with the bone-headed notions of his friends. The rebel humans were way too generic, neatly fitting categories long-ago established (and done with more flair) by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, and William Golding. Every female in the book came across as wooden, one-dimensional and painfully tied to the stereotype of a typical woman. Blech.
Ordinary -seeming characters can work very well. I love the humble and unassuming character Odd Thomas, for instance, but he turns out to have a latent core of courage and wiliness anytime his back is up against the wall. It's okay to have a lead character SEEM ordinary, but it's not okay for that character to BE ordinary when push comes to shove.
Trying not to spoil the ending for you all, I will just say that Bram's defining moment is an impassioned telling of his own side of the story which influences the final decisions made regarding the fate of the human race. Not sure what would have been better considering that he was raised by pacifists and was definitely a pacifist himself, but I found his role unsatisfying.
Bram is the protagonist, a human raised by a long-lived species called the Nar. The Nar look like big flowers with 10 petals - 5 above the waist and 5 below, with a belt of eyes around the waist area. They communicate with each other by touch through highly sophisticated cilia. They can also speak human language. The Nar actually received the human genome and much of its culture from a long-distance transmission sent across the galaxies. They were able to create humans from this information, taking it upon themselves to nurture and provide for this new race on their planets and moons.
Bram was raised by the Nar in an atmosphere of love and acceptance, and eventually joined the Nar in a genetics lab, working on new foodstuffs and other worthy projects. Although the Nar rarely denied humans anything they asked for and were a pacifist race, other segments of humanity were resentful of Nar control over the resources and information. Before too long, some of these humans planned a violent uprising.
This is the tale of how Bram found himself mixed up with these rebels and the chaos and sadness that ensued, and ultimately, the surprising reaction of the Nar.
Great plotline and social commentary, but the lead character was just so passive and uninteresting. He is pushed around, stepped on, fooled, and otherwise treated like a complete doormat for almost the entire book.
Perhaps I have grown too used to characters that are oversized in their determination and talent, or the alternative - characters with a huge, interesting chip on their shoulders. But I found myself irritated by Bram's lack of initiative and desire to go along with the bone-headed notions of his friends. The rebel humans were way too generic, neatly fitting categories long-ago established (and done with more flair) by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, and William Golding. Every female in the book came across as wooden, one-dimensional and painfully tied to the stereotype of a typical woman. Blech.
Ordinary -seeming characters can work very well. I love the humble and unassuming character Odd Thomas, for instance, but he turns out to have a latent core of courage and wiliness anytime his back is up against the wall. It's okay to have a lead character SEEM ordinary, but it's not okay for that character to BE ordinary when push comes to shove.
Trying not to spoil the ending for you all, I will just say that Bram's defining moment is an impassioned telling of his own side of the story which influences the final decisions made regarding the fate of the human race. Not sure what would have been better considering that he was raised by pacifists and was definitely a pacifist himself, but I found his role unsatisfying.
August 29, 2007
After intercepting a message from Earth, Nar scientists have learned the secret of human life. The alien species understands everything about human technology and culture and uses this knowledge to build on each breakthrough until they succeed in re-creating humans. Now they encourage their "pets" to evolve within the alien community and learn the mysteries of the galaxy, but prohibit any knowledge of the planet Earth itself. Bram has always dreamed of traveling to the forbidden planet. Although Earth is millions of miles away, the bioengineer is determined to discover the truth about his species and the land that has been kept a secret his whole life. Bram must discover a way to unveil the truth and see the homeland he has been denied.
March 21, 2013
Interesting ideas and likeable aliens, so a great read. One minor quibble is that humans supposedly sent a radio transmission to the Virgo cluster of galaxies but the signal is detected by aliens in the Whirlpool Galaxy, which is in a completely different area of sky. How this happened is never explained! Having read three of the author's books, I find that he is prone to making strange errors, but despite that I can recommend the book (and its sequel).
January 21, 2014
It's not a bad book, but I couldn't get that interested in all the technological jargon. I'm not usually turned off by that kind of thing, but... i dunno. Bad execution?
Also, the Nar, are too... perfect, for my taste. It's claimed that in order to be able to evolve, in any world, you need to be the perfect predator. I'm not sure if it's true, but I felt them too mellow to survive in any kind of survival-of-the-fittest world.
Also, the Nar, are too... perfect, for my taste. It's claimed that in order to be able to evolve, in any world, you need to be the perfect predator. I'm not sure if it's true, but I felt them too mellow to survive in any kind of survival-of-the-fittest world.
July 6, 2010
Aliens ! My favorite.
Recommended by author Greg Bear
Recommended by author Greg Bear
January 16, 2014
Stunning.
October 15, 2015
Somewhat complex story about mixing humans and other races. A brilliant concept but the book never quite takes off.
February 9, 2014
Very interesting premise. Fun to see a truly new theme.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews