The Orion Protocol

September 8, 2003
A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review. THE ORION PROTOCOL Gary Tigerman. Morrow, $23.95 (336p) ISBN 0-380-97670-6 In 1959, the U.S. government issued a report by the Brookings Institution, coauthored by famed anthropologist Margaret Mead, recommending that any evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence found during the exploration of our solar system be withheld from the general public—who might react badly to it. This, suggests Tigerman in his lumpy, jumpy but rarely boring first novel, was the start of a massive coverup, exposed during the first 100 days of the administration of George W. Bush's fictional successor, a former Democratic senator from Colorado. When someone inside the NASA establishment sends PBS science correspondent Angela Browning pictures of fabulous archeological ruins on Mars, pictures that seem to have come from a supposedly lost Mars probe, it sets off a series of frighteningly believable defensive maneuvers by a host of government agencies. To find out more, Browning tracks down Jake Deaver, one of the last astronauts to walk on the moon. Together, the two embark on an investigation that not only reveals the existence of extraterrestrials but also uncovers the true function of a strategic defense shield dubbed Project Orion. As the novel proceeds, chapters and sections become increasingly short and jerky, and Tigerman's usually brisk prose occasionally turns baroque: "The fact was that Mother England's runaway child was only a blink away from possessing the means for world domination on a scale only Deutschland's most infamous housepainter had ever envisioned, burning himself alive with pure methamphetamine crystal and raving in his self-made Bergtesgarden of corpses." Despite its inconsistencies, however, this is stirring speculative fiction.