David L. Brown’s sprawling volume, A GIGANTIC LEAP, has an impressive imaginative arc, taking topics as varied as corporate intrigue, alien abduction, and the innate qualities of humankind. Stephen Hopkins is a university professor in Washington, D.C., an anthropologist whose field trip to the Amazon rainforest ended in disaster when his son, Gerard, was shot and paralyzed. Hopkins is writing an expose of the corrupt business practices of Ethan Gorr – the resemblance of the name to a certain multi-billionaire is unmissable – whose unlikability extends to indulging in voyeurism. Hopkins’ father has the ear of the President, and is in cahoots with Gorr; he is a charismatic preacher who sucks money from his congregants “like soda through straws”. Brown develops the plot with care, establishing his characters in believable poses. Hopkins’ abduction by aliens fills him with foreboding, but also an incredulity appropriate to a person in his position. In the same way, Gorr feels no compunction in clearing huge swathes of Amazonian rainforest or helping strongmen to stash away their weapons, but indulges his nerdy nephew.
At the novel’s heart is the “aliens in judgment” trope. A galactic commission tasked with assessing the danger of emerging species determines that humankind should be destroyed for their inherently violent nature. Hopkins is abducted, and called to answer for his species. This is well-trodden ground, but Brown’s treatment of it never lapses into cliché. He leans into anthropological literature, channeling Horace Miner in both the aliens’ description of humans and Hopkins’ ripostes to their accusations. The irony of humans in the Western world sitting in judgment on the rituals and customary practices of “primitive” tribes in South America, while many light-years away the process is occurring at a higher level, is not lost on the reader. Only once – when Brown describes the fist-pumping, attaboy President Wainwright, does Brown venture into the realm of parody. Ultimately, A GIGANTIC LEAP rises and falls on the quality of its realization. If the storyline and plot beats are familiar ones, they are presented with verve.
Though it relies on familiar tropes, David L. Brown’s A GIGANTIC LEAP offers an engrossing and imaginative take on the “judgment of humankind” science fiction story.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader