The Stonehenge Gate

Jack Williamson
The Stonehenge Gate Cover

The Stonehenge Gate

Badseedgirl
8/14/2014
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I have to admit that I had some real issues with Jack Williamson's novel Stonehenge Gate. For one thing, the medical science in the novel is questionable at best. When the "Four Horsemen" make contact with an alien species of human origin, we should have seen the natives, the explorers or both ravaged by diseases their bodies had no antibodies for. We have several examples of this in our history, most notably small pox and the South American population. That being said, the fact the Mr. Williamson was able to write a decent novel at the age of 97, is in itself a small miracle.

This novel reminds me of one of the throwbacks to the 1950's space adventure. The characters tend to be a little one dimensional. You have Dorothy Gayle, Will Stone who spends the entire novel wanting to go home, Pollyanna Derek Ironcraft who unabashedly saw the entire trip as on grand adventure, Gloomy Gus Ram Chenji who is depressed the entire time, and Lupe Vargus, who was not in the novel long enough for me to give her a snarky nickname.

I should probably check out Mr. Williams other works before I pass judgment on him as a writer, but for Stonehenge Gate, I would have to give it 3 stars.