Nemesis - Isaac Asimov > Reviews (2)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, NEMESIS means: 'One that inflicts relentless vengance or destruction.' So in the year 2220 when a new planet is discovered and named Nemesis by the scientist who first saw it you start to wonder about the implications of the new name.

'Nemesis' (the book, not the planet) is set way in the future and although Sci-Fi isn't usually my choice of reading material, this book had me enthralled from the minute I started reading it. In the year 2220 life on Earth is completely different to how we know it now. To put a finer point on it, Earth isn't the be-all-and-end-all of humanity - in fact, groups of people have started breaking away from Earth and settlements are being built all around the Solar System. Earth is overcrowded, dirty, cold and totally detested by the people who live on these settlements. They don't hate Earth people though, most of these people were born on the settlements that are cruising around the Solar System and feel a great pity for the planet their ancestors inhabited many years ago. One such settlement is Rotor; the commander of Rotor has made it his life's work to find a planet that the Rotorians can make into a home. They've discovered the art of Hyper Assistance as a quicker way to travel through space and now they can travel at the speed of light, even a planet many, many light years away can be reached as easily as travelling across the Earth to Australia.

So when scientist Eugenia Insigna happens to see a 'Red Dwarf' star which isn't in our Solar System and isn't governed by our Sun, the 'big knobs' on Rotor are excited to say the least. Sixteen short years is all it takes for Janus Pitt (the power hungry Commander of Rotor) to direct his scientists to perfect Hyper Assistance and take the whole settlement to this mysterious Star to create a colony which no Earth person could ever hope to reach and take over in their lifetime. But it's not that simple. Yes, they get there. Yes, they start to create their colony. And yes, there are major problems starting to unravel for them.

Eugenia's daughter, Marlene, is 15 years old and she has an uncanny knack of reading peoples body language to the point that it's impossible to lie to her. She spots immediately upon meeting Janus Pitt that eventually he would have no qualms about putting his own personal development before the interests of Rotor as a whole. But at 15, what can she do? Nemesis's Sun is a huge gas planet called Megas and there's also a neighbour planet called Erythro which is similar to our Mars, although habitable. So Marlene uses the fact that Janus Pitt is so wary of her abilities and attitude towards life on Rotor that he arranges for Marlene and her mother to spend some time on Erythro basically so he can get rid of Marlene who he believes is becoming troublesome.

Another problem comes in the form of Marlene's father, Crile Fisher. Crile is an Earthman who was sent to Rotor by Earth's government to spy on the Rotorians and to find out how advanced their Hyper Assistance programme is.

But being an Earthman, people are wary of his intentions and this is proved when Rotor is preparing to take off out of our Solar System and to Nemesis, using Hyper Assistance. Crile just doesn't want to go, and he doesn't go. But he spends the next 15 years thinking about Marlene and wondering if the people of Rotor successfully made the trip or whether Rotor is floating around in space filled with the bodies of it's citizens.

So when Earth realises where Rotor has disappeared to the race starts to not only find out about Hyper Assistance but to take it one step further and perfect the science of Superluminal space flight - travelling FASTER than the speed of light. Tessa Wendall is a top scientist on another settlement and she's recruited to design and build a space ship capable of superluminal flight, but as she's working on this a terrible discovery is made. Nemesis is travelling at such a speed and in such a direction that in 5000 years it's going to pass close enough to Earth to completely mess up Earths ecological system and this in turn will make Earth uninhabitable. So the Superluminal is now a necessity, Earths people may have to be evacuated.....

I can't tell you any more about the story as anything else wil be a spoiler. Does Nemesis complete it's journey of destruction? Does Tessa develop Superlumial space flight enough to be able to avert this tragedy? How does Marlene fit into the grand scheme of things? I'm not telling you!

All I will say is this book is definitely worth a read. Isaac Asimov uses such strong descriptions of various planets, stars and people that you almost feel that you're watching a film rather than reading a book. You find yourself picturing the faces of the characters in the book and you can relate to the characters - when they're scared you can understand why and when they're happy you find yourself wishing them the best. A good thing that I found with this book is you're not given a multitude of characters to remember - the main characters in 'Nemesis' are a core of 6 or 7 people and unlike many other books I've read, Asimov doesn't add characters for the sake of it and you know if a new character is introduced then he'll be important later on in the story. The names that Asimov has given his planets are delightful - Megas, Erythro, Adelia and he also tends to give his character exotic names, which also endears them to you as you don't tend to forget their names and then have to turn back 20 pages in the book to find out who they are!

Although Nemesis and it's eventual path of destruction leading to Earth is the main story, the book covers lots of mini stories at the same time and deals with issues such as immigration, mental health, making idols out of leaders and other problems that a group of people leaving their Solar System are likely to face.

This copy I have here is the 1989 paperback edition and cost £3.99, although I've done a search and it looks like it might be quite hard to track down. The library will definitely have it and I'll heartily recommend Nemesis as an escapist novel and also as a bit of a moral tale. Is it moral to make a planet which LOOKS uninhabited your own? Is it moral to leave Earth to it's own destiny when you could help? I'll let you make your own minds up.

Thanks for reading. :o)