Review: Too much technical detail, not enough character development, main discovery not convincing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 27, 2013
So far I have read the four published volumes of T.I. Wade's planned five volume "America One" series, which was only partially successful and ultimately, for me, fell short of being the kind of dynamic, interesting, and exciting story, with strong and well-realized characters, that appeals to me.Way too much of his story of the contemporary exploration of our solar system by a private citizen was taken up by mind-numbing technological detail--page after page after page of it, over and over again--which may have pleased the author and other techies, but which was an encumbering  weight that kept the story from really taking off and soaring.  As well, a lot of the story was basically a travelogue of the solar system, with detailed scientific information on each place visited laid out in great--and eventually boring--detail.  On the other hand, outside of a few main characters who were mostly reasonably well-developed, his characters were pretty one dimensional and pretty formulaic.**SPOILER ALERT**The great discovery in all their exploration was that a space faring race, the ancient ancestors of the Bushmen, had developed a high technology some 10,000 years ago, when the Sahara had last been a lush tropical area, and that some of these diminutive pacifist ancestors of the Bushmen had traveled out into the solar system, established underground bases on an asteroid, on Mars, on Ganymede, and some of the outer moons, all to be re-supplied from supplies cached on the asteroid, whose orbit periodically brought it close to each one of their other bases. When things fell apart they went into cryogenic hibernation, and some survived in hibernation for close to 10,000 years until the explorers from America One found and revived them.The author made these progenitors of the Bushmen to be telepathic, vegetarians, and members of a society where violence was completely unknown, in contrast to the warlike, bloody-minded, power-mad, violent, double-crossing governments and people who inhabited today's Earth; the author suggesting it was Earthmen's meat-eating that was responsible for our aggression, war-like temperament, and our predilection for violence.Unfortunately, on reflection, this whole ancient Bushman thing had some severe holes in it.How, for instance, could a vegetarian, totally nonviolent society grow up 10,000 years ago, when violent conflict--i.e. survival of the fittest--was the normal situation throughout the entire primitive world?  Other than saying it was so, where was the basis for such a highly technological society developing 10,000 years ago in the Sahara? Where, if their society was so in tune with its environment and without conflict, would the push come from to make some people want to leave Earth and to explore our solar system?  Why would these ancient astronauts establish their bases in such hostile environments and so far from Earth? Even though their underground bases were high technology marvels, how was it possible that the whole supply system broke down when people at these bases were unable to produce the several hundred gallons of alcohol needed to fuel their spaceships, so that they could fly out to the re-supply asteroid or to Earth? How come in their non-violent, peaceful, cooperative society, there were such hierarchical divisions that the only ones who were allowed to know the true capabilities and the extent of the facilities of each underground base were the base commanders, with all those of lesser rank under them ignorant of the bases extent and even of the technology that made it possible?Bottom line--the proto-Bushman thing was just not very convincing, and appeared to be just a convenient gimmick, allowing the author to beat up on today's people as ultra-violent, warlike, irrational meat eaters responsible for our world sinking into a morass of violence, war, and decline.The fifth and last volume will apparently see our explorers find the proto-Bushman's home base in Africa and deal with the Earth's violent and avaricious governments, but somehow I don't think that this last volume will rescue this series from being just OK.