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Giants #5
Mission to Minerva
TRANSPORTED ACROSS THE MUILTIVERSE.
Over light-years of space and 50,000 years back in time, to create a new history.... Only to find there was no way back.
Earth is adapting to a future of amicable coexistence with the advanced aliens from Thurien, descended from ancestors who once inhabited Minerva, a vanished planet of the Solar System. The plans of the distantly related humans on the rogue world Jevlen to eliminate their ancient Terran rivals and take over the Thurien system of worlds have been thwarted, but the mystery remains of how it was possible for the fleeing Jevlenese leaders to have been flung back across space and time to reappear at Minerva before the time of its destruction.
Victor Hunt and a group of his colleagues travel to Thurien to conduct a joint investigation with the alien scientists into the strange physics of interconnectedness between the countless alternate universes that constitute ultimate reality. When their discoveries lead first to bizarre communication with bewildered counterparts in other universes, and thence to the possibility of physical travel, the notion is conceived of sending a mission back to the former world of Minerva with the startling objective of creating a new family of realities in which its destruction is avoided. But Imares Broghuilio, the deposed Jevlenese leader, along with several thousand dedicated followers with five heavily armed starships, are already there. And they have a score to settle.
Over light-years of space and 50,000 years back in time, to create a new history.... Only to find there was no way back.
Earth is adapting to a future of amicable coexistence with the advanced aliens from Thurien, descended from ancestors who once inhabited Minerva, a vanished planet of the Solar System. The plans of the distantly related humans on the rogue world Jevlen to eliminate their ancient Terran rivals and take over the Thurien system of worlds have been thwarted, but the mystery remains of how it was possible for the fleeing Jevlenese leaders to have been flung back across space and time to reappear at Minerva before the time of its destruction.
Victor Hunt and a group of his colleagues travel to Thurien to conduct a joint investigation with the alien scientists into the strange physics of interconnectedness between the countless alternate universes that constitute ultimate reality. When their discoveries lead first to bizarre communication with bewildered counterparts in other universes, and thence to the possibility of physical travel, the notion is conceived of sending a mission back to the former world of Minerva with the startling objective of creating a new family of realities in which its destruction is avoided. But Imares Broghuilio, the deposed Jevlenese leader, along with several thousand dedicated followers with five heavily armed starships, are already there. And they have a score to settle.
549 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
44 people are currently reading
491 people want to read
About the author
James P. Hogan
114 books268 followersJames Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 20, 2012
I have been looking forward to this sequel ever since Baen editor (now publisher) Toni Weiskopf talked about it at a con a few years ago. Sadly, after the first hundred pages I came close to putting it back on the shelf, but I stuck it out and was glad I did, as the book finally got on with the “mission” about half way through.
The story picks up right where the last ‘Giants’ book left off, the Thurians are doing well and all is well with the world, that is until Hunt receives a message from himself via a dimensional rift. The rift is not a complete surprise as the Thurians have been working on this with Hunt and his group but only small openings for very short durations have been achieved. The message is way beyond anything they could do yet.
This event starts in motion a trip to Thurian on the Shaperion to investigate the phenomenon. After a series of events, the “mission” is finally underway – of course we are talking about a mission back in time, since Minerva is no more in the here and now as readers of the ‘Giants’ series may recall. I won’t give away the purpose of the mission but it is quite interesting and makes for the interesting ending.
Overall I liked the book, but it could have been massively edited to make for a better paced story and certainly a lot less detail in the science explanation would have been welcome. I know that many readers will enjoy the physics lesson but it does drag the book down.
If you enjoyed the ‘Giants’ series then by all means read this book, but if you haven’t, I would advise reading the rest of the series first or this book will be hard to follow.
The story picks up right where the last ‘Giants’ book left off, the Thurians are doing well and all is well with the world, that is until Hunt receives a message from himself via a dimensional rift. The rift is not a complete surprise as the Thurians have been working on this with Hunt and his group but only small openings for very short durations have been achieved. The message is way beyond anything they could do yet.
This event starts in motion a trip to Thurian on the Shaperion to investigate the phenomenon. After a series of events, the “mission” is finally underway – of course we are talking about a mission back in time, since Minerva is no more in the here and now as readers of the ‘Giants’ series may recall. I won’t give away the purpose of the mission but it is quite interesting and makes for the interesting ending.
Overall I liked the book, but it could have been massively edited to make for a better paced story and certainly a lot less detail in the science explanation would have been welcome. I know that many readers will enjoy the physics lesson but it does drag the book down.
If you enjoyed the ‘Giants’ series then by all means read this book, but if you haven’t, I would advise reading the rest of the series first or this book will be hard to follow.
November 19, 2012
While still not as good as the first two in the series, it did tie up a lot of loose ends and - although the first half of the book was pretty slow - it also provided a lot more Ganymean/Thurien goodness :)
January 23, 2013
A rather open-ended way to close the series down, I suppose Hogan never quite new when he would be done with it. I enjoyed it though, it answered a few questions from earlier, although without quite capturing some of the initial enjoyment of the series.
May 14, 2015
The book starts out really slow and you don't seem very much suspense for the first half. It instead reads like James Hogan is describing the world he wishes he lived in. Once the book enters the second half, it becomes a decent hard science fiction novel with a good amount of suspense.
April 8, 2023
Premesso che la saga di Minerva è dei Giganti è una delle più belle che abbia letto, questo libro è senz'altro il meno interessante. Il problema è che sembra quasi un trattato di fisica quantistica e teoria del multiverso. Solo un fisico o chi, come me, è un lettore dilettante di fisica quantistica può seguirne bene la trama. E, comunque, la trama, pur regalandoci un'altra avventura dei nostri amati eroi terrestri ed extra, è the che è evidente che è un'aggiunta ex post alla trama originale. In effetti, la saga avrebbe potuto concludersi con grande soddisfazione dei lettori già col finale del terzo libro. La trama del quarto, molto bella, è "appesa per i capelli" alla trilogia iniziale e potrebbe dare l'impressione (non certa) che fosse nell mente dell'autore sin dall'inizio. Ma questo libro son sicuro che è stato pensato tempo dopo e collegato a gran garza alla saga. Ma, comunque è ripeto, il problema è l'eccessivo tecnicismo.
December 6, 2018
Good story
I read the three original novels in this series when they were first published and was unaware that three additional volumes had been written expanding the series. This volume is a combo set of books five and six in the original format, I purchased it thinking it was the original third novel and discovered my mistake when reading the summary at the beginning. Though not as intriguing as the original trilogy the second trilogy is well worth reading. I have aged decades since first reading the original trilogy and my different perspective has altered my outlook on some of the ideas proposed in this second trilogy.
I read the three original novels in this series when they were first published and was unaware that three additional volumes had been written expanding the series. This volume is a combo set of books five and six in the original format, I purchased it thinking it was the original third novel and discovered my mistake when reading the summary at the beginning. Though not as intriguing as the original trilogy the second trilogy is well worth reading. I have aged decades since first reading the original trilogy and my different perspective has altered my outlook on some of the ideas proposed in this second trilogy.
December 27, 2018
VOTO:3,1
Credo sia il più noioso dell'intero ciclo, nonostante si incentri su un tema molto interessante come il Multiverso.
Purtroppo 3/4 abbondanti del libro risultano piuttosto tediosi, anche in virtù di dissertazioni etiche e morali sulla società thuriena inserite come mero riempitivo, sebbene qualche riflessione interessante possa essere tratta.
Si riscatta soltanto alla fine, nelle ultime 100 pagine, più o meno, ma lo fa troppo tardi.
Raggiunge comunque la sufficienza, da leggere per completezza nel caso si siano già letti i 4 precedenti.
Credo sia il più noioso dell'intero ciclo, nonostante si incentri su un tema molto interessante come il Multiverso.
Purtroppo 3/4 abbondanti del libro risultano piuttosto tediosi, anche in virtù di dissertazioni etiche e morali sulla società thuriena inserite come mero riempitivo, sebbene qualche riflessione interessante possa essere tratta.
Si riscatta soltanto alla fine, nelle ultime 100 pagine, più o meno, ma lo fa troppo tardi.
Raggiunge comunque la sufficienza, da leggere per completezza nel caso si siano già letti i 4 precedenti.
October 7, 2025
“Mission to Minerva” is a solid fifth & final chapter in James P. Hogan’s Giants series. The first half of the novel is a hard science lesson in quantum physics. The second half is a return to space opera. Hogan’s heroes Vic Hunt, Chris Danchekker, & their Ganymean cronies again take down the Saturday morning cartoon villains as they save Minerva from destruction and save the day.
It is interesting that the Giants novels are set in the 2020s but feature: Flying cars, a quasi-utopian Earth, interstellar/ interdimensional communications and travel.
It is interesting that the Giants novels are set in the 2020s but feature: Flying cars, a quasi-utopian Earth, interstellar/ interdimensional communications and travel.
May 23, 2024
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one of my favorite sci-fi authors, James P. Hogan, returned to his "Giants' Star" triology and added two more books to it - this last one explores some unanswered questions about time travel arising from the original trilogy . . .
January 30, 2019
These 5 books have been captivating. Unfortunately there won't be a follow because sadly the author has passed away in 2010.
Read
January 22, 2020I must admit, this part was a little bit predictable and while it was interesting, it didn't trigger my curiosity as the previous 4 parts had. Though, I am definitely going to miss Visar :)
November 14, 2020
Just loved this whole series.
May 9, 2022
La conclusione di un ciclo meraviglioso. Ho amato di più i primi tre libri.
November 19, 2022
Looks like the final book on the convoluted Giants series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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March 14, 2023Despite having become a series, Hogan manages to introduce new technology and concepts. Still quite enjoyable.
August 9, 2011
Mission To Minerva is the latest in Hogan's series of Giants books so it probably wasn't the best place to start reading. The whole story of the book revolves around the humans and Gannymeans goal of developing time travel, perhaps to catch the evil Jevlenese who were seen previously in the series to be accidentally banished into the past at a very crucial stage in galactic civilization. Of course there is no time travel yet, so to make it plausible the first two thirds of the book is spent in a lab developing it while the last third is a kind of weak adventure story where they win the day. The main characters, the scientists, are boring, as are the peace loving Gannymeans they work with. The main draws of this story are Hogan's world-building, and his narrative voice which at times is simplistic enough to be petty. This also makes his characters a little two-dimensional for much of the book. Despite all this I enjoyed it Mission To Minerva, although if you're like me, you'll wonder why Hogan made you sit through more than half a story watching something get invented.
September 16, 2007
Okay, here's the thing. The first three books in the Giants series were fabulous. Brilliant, mind expanding, challenging, and fun. Entoverse was okay, and it was nice to see Vic Hunt and Chris Danchekker back again, but it was kind of anticlimactic. So is this one. I'd love to give it more than just 3 stars, but I can't, really.
December 14, 2019
Pure high class science fiction
I read these books many years ago, and I had a very good, although quite vague memories of them... Well reading them again today in an internet/.smartphone hyper connected era, hasn't detracted a iota of their freshness . Truly a masterpiece if one loves REAL science fiction .
I read these books many years ago, and I had a very good, although quite vague memories of them... Well reading them again today in an internet/.smartphone hyper connected era, hasn't detracted a iota of their freshness . Truly a masterpiece if one loves REAL science fiction .
July 28, 2012
Stopped reading at chapter 6 - it just isn't getting on with the story. I remember the earlier books in the Giants series being much more engaging than this.
September 1, 2014
Tedium cubed. I hung in there by skimming as much as I could to finish the story. There are some great ideas buried in this book, but it's often painful to get to them.
June 24, 2016
I liked it.
September 8, 2015
So . . . who was Koriel?
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews