our friends sit down for a jovial poker game. All are employed at Eastern New Mexico University. They are Derek Ironcraft, physicist; Lupe Vargas, archaeologist; her assistant, Ram Chenji; and the first-person narrator, Will Stone, an English teacher. The night goes as planned, until Derek drags out a ground-penetration-radar survey map of the Sahara, which shows buried "trilithons" arranged rather like Stonehenge.
Before you can say "Indiana Jones," the quartet have decided to devote their summer to an impromptu, unsponsored dig at the site. Perhaps their motivation can be partially understood by the fact that Ram's people come from that location—and that the African man bears a birthmark that seems to replicate the arrangement of the ruins!
The quartet are not long at the dig before they discover that the immemorial megaliths are a gateway to the stars. And when a giant robot "hopper" comes through and kidnaps Lupe, the others have no choice but to follow through the gate.
Their first destination is a deadly world set up to winnow fit travelers from the feeble. They pass the test and move on to a world full of evidence of an extinct grand civilization, but empty of sentient life. Traveling a mysterious moving road, they encounter many wonders—as well as signs of Lupe's passage—before they arrive at a sky elevator leading to the second world in the binary setup of this star system.
They step onboard and are transported across space. Exiting on another planet, they encounter more hoppers. Beyond these robots—well, the novel has only reached a third of its length at this point. There are countless thrilling adventures yet to come, before the friends are reunited.
An eternal sense of wonder
Jack Williamson hinted after the publication of his novel prior to this one that he wouldn't be writing any more long pieces of fiction. But thank goodness he reneged on that vow (and after 77 years of steady production, how possible was it that the writing virus that infected him in his youth could ever be extirpated?). This current book is one of his strongest and most entertaining late-period novels yet.
Perhaps the allure and polish of this book stem from its adherence to certain traditions that Williamson has always found congenial. Stonhenge Gate combines the fantastical, Argosy-style romance of A. Merritt (always an influence on Williamson) with the elegiac melancholy of Don A. Stuart (aka John Campbell in his "sensitive" mode). Additionally, there's an element of social commentary. This trio of effects makes for a pleasantly varied narrative and brings out the best in the author.
The major trope—relic stargates—is surely one of the most powerful in the genre, and Williamson makes the most out of it. Exploring this material takes up the first third and the last quarter of the book. But the big section in between concerns the adventures of Will Stone (note the similarity to Williamson's famous pseudonym, Will Stewart) and Ram Chenji, as the latter is mistaken for a god and is convinced to lead a revolt of black slaves. This section reads almost like a Philip Jose Farmer adventure, with sprinklings of Paul Park's Starbridge Chronicles (1989-91). In lesser hands, such a large chunk of seemingly peripheral material might have fatally derailed the main tale. But Williamson integrates it perfectly, and makes us relish the "detour."
With his simple yet immaculate prose, Williamson propels his quartet of adventures through harrowing and uplifting adventures. (Lupe, being offstage for most of the book, gets less development, alas, than the others.) And above all he conveys what Derek Ironcraft calls "the enchantment of science. New vistas of wonder exploding out of every advance."
Williamson's body may be elderly, but his heart and soul and mind remain young.
