The Fire Seekers (The Babel Trilogy Book 1)

The story is well-written (hence the four stars) but it has flaws. Richard Farr has done some impressive homework, but there are obvious gaps here and there. I'd say he was a couple of decades behind cutting-edge technology and a single decade behind cutting-edge archaeology. At least, in terms of what's written. To be fair, if he'd made the early part of the story scientifically "correct", it would be unreadable and utterly unbelievable. I'll assume, then, that he was being kind to readers.

The core of the story is more problematic. Ancient Astronaut theories are old-hat, as are novels about deep, mysterious secrets in undecyphered languages. To warrant five stars, he'd need to give a new spin on this. 2001: A Space Odyssey meets National Treasure meets Quatermas III and IV meets Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull this is by far the best variant of that particular mix that I've come across, but it's not a new mix. Again, I'll be fair wholly original ideas are extremely rare, the formula works and a book with no readers won't do anyone any good.

I give out five stars when an author can square the circle, four for an excellent attempt. I don't expect this to become a must-have classic, but as best-of-breed, it does deserve recognition at WorldCon or similar and it does deserve success.