Hegira by Greg Bear

Hegira by Greg Bear (Italian edition)
Hegira by Greg Bear (Italian edition)

The novel “Hegira” by Greg Bear was published for the first time in 1979 and revised for a new edition in 1987.

Hegira is a planet with a diameter six times the Earth. Its inhabitants can read the history and culture of the Firstborn on one thousand kilometers tall obelisks but chronologically theose information go from the bottom up so people can reach only the oldest part of the Earth’s history on the first few miles.

Bar-Woten is a commander who’s been involved in continuous wars for twenty years. Sick of that violent life, along with his faithful servant and a pilgrim whose beloved girl fell into a strange state of stasis, he starts a journey in search of the Wall, where according to legend there’s the possibility to discover the secrets of Hegira and of the Earth.

“Hegira” is the first novel written by Greg Bear in 1973 but it was published only in 1979. I read the 1987 revised version. From what I understand, the changes are in the ending.

The plot is based on the classic concept of the quest with the three protagonists who face a long journey in search for answers. The story is set on a peculiar planet much larger than the Earth but with a gravity equal to Earth’s, hiding secrets that are revealed at the end of the novel.

The main problem I found in the novel is that it’s developed slowly from virtually all points of view. The story is told from the alternating point of view of the three protagonists but at the beginning they’re quite dull and only towards the end we really know their motives. If the author had developed them a bit more in the first part, it would’ve been easier to feel a connection with them.

The journey itself becomes really interesting only when an obelisk falls causing a catastrophe. Initially, the protagonists travel through various lands but in reality not much happens. In essence, in the first part of the novel the interesting elements are the discovery of the planet Hegira’s features and the beginning of the protagonists’ quest. Local cultures are inspired by the Earth’s ones of the past centuries, which the inhabitants absorbed reading the obelisks, so they’re quite familiar to the reader.

The novel really takes off in its last part, where there’s a lot more action and eventually the protagonists reach the Wall, where they get the answers they sought. This is definitely the best part and despite the setting that superficially seems more fantasy you can see that Greg Bear is a hard science fiction writer. In particular, you can see how he can put together speculations on the future of humanity with the ones about the universe.

Luckily, the novel is relatively short so it just takes a little effort to go through the obstacle of the beginning. Of course, if the novel had been longer maybe Greg Bear would’ve created a better background for the characters from the start and would’ve made their journey exciting in the first part as well.

In “Hegira” you can already see Greg Bear’s talent but he couldn’t express it completely. This is a novel that overall is still quite good but if you don’t know this author yet my advice is to start with one of the novels he wrote in later years, when he reached a greater stylistic maturity.

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