Book Review: Seven Steps to the Sun

Book Review: 'Seven Steps to the Sun' by Fred Hoyle and Geoffrey Hoyle

3 / 5 Stars

'Seven Steps to the Sun' first was published in the UK in 1970. This Fawcett Crest paperback edition (160 pp.) was published in the U.S. in January, 1973 and features cover art by Jerome Podwil. This was one of a number of science fiction novels authored by the father-and-son team of the Hoyles.

As the novel opens, it's June 6, 1969, and our protagonist, a young writer named Mike Jerome, is travelling the streets of London in search of new ideas for television programs (er, 'programmes'). Jerome arranges to talk to a physics professor, who describes how time travel into the future could be made possible. Excited with the idea of time travel as a theme for a television show, while crossing the street, Mike notes a strange set of lights coalescing around him and distractedly steps in front of a taxicab. Everything goes dark...........

When Mike awakens, it is in a hospital, and his body is intact. Indeed, Mike is treated for carbon monoxide poisoning, rather than vehicular trauma, and released. He finds the London outside to be strangely unfamiliar. When he arrives at his apartment, he is astonished to find someone else living there. Things only get more confusing when Mike looks at a newspaper and discovers it's dated June 6, 1979.

As Mike Jerome is about to discover, he is an unwilling participant in an experiment to travel forward in time, by ten-year intervals. The places and people Mike will encounter will test his ability to survive. As to when and where his journey will end, Mike has no idea.........

Penguin Books edition, 1981

'Seven Steps' starts out on a strong note, and maintains this well into the final third of the novel. The protagonist, while not particularly imaginative, has a practical-mindedness that serves him well as he finds himself abruptly inserted into scenarios that either are accommodating, or quite dangerous. The narrative avoids New Wave era mannerisms (the Hoyles never were ardent practitioners of the New Wave approach to prose) and moves along at a good pace. 

'Seven Steps' also delivers some understated messaging, in the form of warnings that the failure of the political class to deal with overpopulation in the 60s, will lead to increasing economic and social travails in the succeeding decades.

Where 'Seven Steps' deflates is in its denouement, a failing also handicapping the novels 'Ossian's Ride' and 'October the First is Too Late'. I won't disclose spoilers, but having put much effort into constructing an action-centered plot about time travel, the Hoyles close the novel with some unconvincing gimmickry. It's a shame, because I believe with a bit more effort on their part the novel could have been one of the better ones on the subject.

The verdict ? 'Seven Steps to the Sun' is a three-star novel. It's entertaining, but be warned that the ending may not justify the time you put into reading the book.