Giants Star series

## Genre Information

Space Opera
Space Exploration

 (Series Content Ratings Click on Explicit Ratings for details.)

## About the Series

* **Genres:** Space Opera, Space Exploration
* **Theme:**
* **Narrative style:**

## Series Description

The series is notable for its creation of a substantial prehistory of the Solar System, stretching back millions of years. This was further expanded in later books to include an alternate universe version of the setting.

Inspired by the 1968 move *2001:A Space Odyssey*...

Hogan revealed in the introduction to the omnibus edition The Two Moons, that Inherit the Stars was inspired by a viewing of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) which he enjoyed until the ending. Complaining about what he saw as the confusing, effects-heavy conclusion at work afterwards, each of his colleagues bet him five pounds that he couldn't write and publish a science-fiction novel. The result was Inherit the Stars, which was published by Del Rey Books in May 1977. He later asked Arthur C. Clarke about the meaning of the ending of 2001, to which Clarke reportedly replied that while the ending of Hogan's Inherit the Stars made more sense, the ending of 2001 made more money.
The series originally was planned as a trilogy published between 1977 and 1981 but was later expanded with *Entoverse* and *Mission to Minerva*.

## Books in order

Some of the individual books are currently out-of-print nor available in ebook format, but the Omnibus' are available for the first four books

1. The Two Moons (Giants Star Book 1) (2013) Omnibus of the following two books.
	* Inherit the Stars (1978)
	* The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978)
2. The Two Worlds (Giants Star Book 2) (2013) Omnibus of the following two books.
	* Giants' Star (1981)
	* Entoverse (1991)
3. Mission to Minerva (Giants Star Book 5) (2005)

## Book Descriptions

Inherit the Stars (1978)
THE MAN ON THE MOON WAS DEAD.
They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils.
His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave.
They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him.
All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old; and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed!
The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978)
THE END OF EXILE
Long before the world of the Ganymeans blew apart, millennia ago, the strange race of giants had vanished. No one could discover their fate, nor where they had gone, nor why. There was only a wrecked ship abandoned on a frozen satellite of Jupiter. And now Earth's code and scientists were there, determined to ferret out the secret of the lost race.
Giants' Star (1981)
ONE
Eons ago, a gentle race of giant aliens fled the planet Minerva, leaving the ancestors of Man to fend for themselves.
TWO
50 thousand years ago, Minerva exploded, hurling its moon into an orbit about the Earth.
THREE
In the 21st century, scientists Victor Hunt and Chris Danchekker, doing research on Ganymede, attract a small band of friendly aliens lost in time, who begin to reveal something of the origin of Mankind.
Finally, Man thought he comprehended his place in the Universe...until he learned of the Watchers in the stars!
Entoverse (1991)
Human society on Jevlen was falling apart -- and it looked as if JEVEX, the immense super-computer that managed all Jevlenese affairs, was at the heart of the matter. Except that the problems didn't stop when JEVEX was shut down. People were changing -- or being changed. It was almost as if the Jevlenese were being possessed...
Meanwhile, in a very different universe, where magic worked and nothing physical was predictable, holy men caught glimpses of another place, a place where the shape of objects remained unchanged by motion, and cause led directly and logically to effect. And the best part was that when the heart was pure, the mind was focused, and circumstances were right, some lucky souls could actually make the transition to that other universe. If only they all could...
Mission to Minerva (Giants Star Book 5) (2005)
Over light-years of space and 50,000 years back in time, to create a new history.... Only to find there was no way back.
Earth is adapting to a future of amicable coexistence with the advanced aliens from Thurien, descended from ancestors who once inhabited Minerva, a vanished planet of the Solar System. The plans of the distantly related humans on the rogue world Jevlen to eliminate their ancient Terran rivals and take over the Thurien system of worlds have been thwarted, but the mystery remains of how it was possible for the fleeing Jevlenese leaders to have been flung back across space and time to reappear at Minerva before the time of its destruction.