Overview
A dark mystery has been buried beneath the sands of the Sahara for eons. In a basement in New Mexico, four poker buddies find reason to believe that a startling secret is out there, and these four amateur adventurers are about to uncover it.
Curiosity propels mild-mannered professor Will and his three friends to the Sahara to excavate a site where radar has detected trilithic stones hidden beneath the sand. There they stumble upon an ancient artifact that will change their lives—and the world—forever: a gateway between planets, linking Earth to distant worlds where they will discover wonders and terrors beyond imagining. Now each traveler must play a crucial role in unraveling an ancient mystery, the solution to which may reveal the true origins of the human race—if they can survive the journey back to Earth.
Synopsis
An extraordinary journey to the stars, from the Dean of Science Fiction Writers.
Publishers Weekly
This trippy stand-alone from Hugo- and Nebula-winner Williamson reads like a novelization of Paul Verhoeven directing Jules Verne's combined rewrite of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. It follows the world-hopping adventures of four poker buddies: physicist Derek and archeologist Lupe, both so obsessed with exploration and getting grants that they have no sense of personal safety; Ram, a linguist descended from an extraterrestrial deity; and Will, a weak-willed English professor who just wants to go home. Williamson's artificial creatures are brilliant as always, so much so that the shape-shifting intelligent metal caretakers of these distant planets are more lovingly and intricately described than the people. Derek and Lupe's absence through most of the book renders them mere plot devices, and Ram and Will's search for their compatriots turns into a humorless parody of the clever dark-skinned native leading the stumbling white man through the jungle. Lush descriptions and a refreshingly brisk pace buoy the novel, but the characters are so uninteresting that disbelief soon becomes as hard to suspend as the space elevator that carries them between worlds. Agent, Eleanor Wood at the Spectrum Literary Agency. (Aug.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewJust a few months after his 97th birthday, Jack Williamson -- fittingly dubbed the Dean of Science Fiction -- showed that he was still going strong by releasing a brand-new novel. The Stonehenge Gate is a planet-hopping romp through space that follows four inquisitive professors who discover an ancient portal in the Sahara Desert that leads them not only to a network of distant worlds but also to some mind-blowing insights about humankind's place in the cosmos.
Will Stone is an English literature professor at Eastern New Mexico University. Every week, he and his three buddies gather for a potluck dinner and a few hands of poker. When Derek Ironcraft, a physics and astronomy instructor who spends his summers interning at NASA, shares with his friends his "latest enigma" -- a ground penetration radar scan of the Sahara that shows a huge circle of stones buried a few meters underground -- they decide to spend Christmas break digging in the African sand. What they uncover will turn the scientific community upside down -- if only they get back!
Williamson, born in 1908, has written numerous seminal works like "With Folded Hands" (1947), Darker than You Think (1948), Seetee Ship (1951), and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella "The Ultimate Earth" (2000). The Stonehenge Gate is reminiscent of his pulp science fiction beginnings: While the characterization isn't exactly substantial, the action and adventure are virtually nonstop throughout, and the pacing is so fast and furious that readers will find it hard to put down this book until the very last page. Paul Goat Allen
Publishers Weekly
This trippy stand-alone from Hugo- and Nebula-winner Williamson reads like a novelization of Paul Verhoeven directing Jules Verne's combined rewrite of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. It follows the world-hopping adventures of four poker buddies: physicist Derek and archeologist Lupe, both so obsessed with exploration and getting grants that they have no sense of personal safety; Ram, a linguist descended from an extraterrestrial deity; and Will, a weak-willed English professor who just wants to go home. Williamson's artificial creatures are brilliant as always, so much so that the shape-shifting intelligent metal caretakers of these distant planets are more lovingly and intricately described than the people. Derek and Lupe's absence through most of the book renders them mere plot devices, and Ram and Will's search for their compatriots turns into a humorless parody of the clever dark-skinned native leading the stumbling white man through the jungle. Lush descriptions and a refreshingly brisk pace buoy the novel, but the characters are so uninteresting that disbelief soon becomes as hard to suspend as the space elevator that carries them between worlds. Agent, Eleanor Wood at the Spectrum Literary Agency. (Aug.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
A group of four poker buddies from Eastern New Mexico University discover a Stonehenge-like portal to other universes. Derek Ironcraft teaches physics and astronomy; Ram (whose ancestor, Little Mama, may have been one of the first to come through the portal to Earth), teaches linguistics and African history; Lupe Vargas teaches anthropology; and Will Stone teaches English literature. It falls to Will to recount their myriad adventures trying to get to a portal to take them back to Earth. Excellent otherworldly but plausible SF. There are details like taking along dive tanks for the first foray into a portal with limited atmosphere, or about Will going back to teach a graduate seminar on Shakespeare's history plays. These ground the surreal things the four discover through some of the other portals. The book seems to be setting up a sequel in the last few lines. KLIATT Codes: SA--Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2005, Tor, 316p., $6.99.. Ages 15 to adult.—Sherry Hoy