Review: Jumpnauts

Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This was a DNF, at 27%, mainly because I look for better science in my science fiction, but also because as a story it just wasn't doing much for me.

By wanting better science I mean not only the ridiculous ancient-aliens pseudoarcheology (though certainly that), but the fundamental lack of understanding of a very basic astronomical concept: the light year. Early on, an object is detected which has gone from 300 light years away to 89 light years away over a period of "a few months," but is said to be travelling "almost at the speed of light". Now, the very definition of a light year is that it's the distance light (or something travelling at the speed of light) takes to travel in a year, so if the object was moving at almost the speed of light it would have taken over 200 years, not just "a few months," to travel that distance.

I could probably have forgiven that, and given the ancient-aliens nonsense a trope pass, if the story had engaged me, but it didn't. Though it's supposed to be about first contact, early on it's mostly a love triangle between an archeologist (who believes in ancient aliens, and has very little personality), an alienated playboy astronomer from a wealthy family (who fills the void inside him with booze and sex), and a senior, yet remarkably hands-on, government agent with very little personality (who is engaged to his boss's daughter, a perfectly lovely woman who deserves better than to be sidelined in favour of the archeologist; but then, she probably deserves better than this guy anyway). My personal quirk is that I need to like the people involved in a romance if I'm going to care about it, and in this case I didn't.

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