Leonard Nimoy's Primortals: Target Earth

by Steve Perry, Leonard Nimoy (Contributor)

A "New York Times" bestselling author turns actor Leonard Nimoy's popular comic book series, "The Primortals", into a smashing new novel. Many eons ago, an alien race removed the most promising indigenous species from Earth to save them from extinction. Now, millennia later, these creatures are retuning to their home planet--ready to claim what is theirs.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Steven Carl Perry has written over fifty novels and numerous short stories, which have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Perry is perhaps best known for the Matador series. He has written books in the Star Wars, Alien and Conan universes. He was a collaborator on all of the Tom Clancy's Net Force series, seven of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list. Two of his novelizations, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Men in Black have also been bestsellers. Other writing credits include articles, reviews, and essays, animated teleplays, and some unproduced movie scripts. One of his scripts for Batman: The Animated Series was an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Writing.

Perry is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, The Animation Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, West

Reviews

[Tomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Short Answer
A fun and surprisingly engaging first third of a novel. Hurt by a surprising lack of space dinosaurs and too many characters, but bolstered by writing that bounces between engaging and hilariously bad.

Fun read for people who like trashy sci-fi with dinosaurs and are excited by a book that's so bad it's good. 2.5 stars.

The Long Answer
This is such a curious book. Based off a comic series I didn't know existed, Primortals is about a race of space dinosaurs arriving at Earth. According to the book sleeve a bunch of aliens rescued some dinosaurs before they went extinct, and made them sentient. However this is never once mentioned in the book, so who knows. A much bigger backstory is alluded to, but the book was clearly expecting to be a series so we never find out more.

A giant space Pterodactyl named Zeerus has appeared on Earth's scopes. He is trying to open communication with everyone. He has some nefarious plans, but plays it very peaceful to start. However, we start with him still six months away from Earth, so we spend our time bouncing between different characters as they prepare for his arrival and learn to communicate with him.

Some of the storylines are engaging, like the top military general and his secret girlfriend who is also a presidential aide, or the story of the CETI scientists who first translate the alien language and are then hired by the government. But a lot of them never get the chance to have anything to do with the main story.

One story follows 11 year old Jake. A computer nerd with a militia nut father. He finds out about the aliens, then spends the rest of the book running from a government agent and his father. This story never ends up having any relevance to the proceedings, though I assume there was much more planned for the character in the non existent second book.

There are also a lot of pointless threads. There's a whole plot line where Zeerus tells everyone how to make a faster than light communication device. We spend a lot of time working on it, but we never really use it until he's already in orbit. Then Zeerus lands and the book ends.

I point out all these extra stories because the landing of Zeerus doesn't feel like the proper end for the book. It feels like the proper end for act 1 of a book. Too much is left hanging and unresolved for it to be satisfying on it's own, even if other books had actually happened. If these stories had been pruned, there would have been way more space to write about what happens next, the actual interesting part of the story.

Did I mention hilariously bad writing? This book is full of amazing phrases like

The newswriter smiled, revealing a prime set of orthodontia

of fantastic over the top metaphors like

If this alien bandwagon got any more overloaded then it was going to blow its tires and drop flatter than a warm glass of year-old ginger ale.

This stuff really helps make the book fun to read as there's loads of this nonsense at random times helping to propel this book into the so bad it's good realm.

If there was a book 2 I'd 100% read it because everything starts getting way more interesting near the end. But it feels like all the good stuff was saved for the next volume. So in the end this book only works as a curiosity through its attachment to Leonard Nimoy.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primortals reads like a television pilot that never got picked up and made into a series. Readers are sure to be disappointed when they realize that the story ends with no resolution, just as things start to get exciting. An alien is on his way to Earth, and the book relates the story of how different people and groups react to this news. If you've seen the first twenty minutes of Independence Day, then you have a good idea as to what the majority of this book is like. Still, I give it three stars because it is entertaining enough--in an anti-climatic sort of way. Mostly, that's due to Perry's writing, which is top-notch here. I honestly had no idea the man was capable of such good prose, having read mostly turds by him in the past. I now see how he got to work on some Tom Clancy books, as he does a great job with both the technological and military aspects of this novel. I can't say this was a satisfying read, but it did make me interested in checking out the comic book series the book was based on. Maybe then I could get a better idea as to how the story might have played out, had it continued.

[Austin Jed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the beginning but as the story progresses, it certainly wanes. The ending was a surprise to me when I finished it, but not in a good way. Makes you feel like something was left out.

[Jason Sacks · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd book. Target Earth is all setup and no payoff. Steve Perry takes a lot of effort in building characters who have some complexity and rich inner lives, which gives us a lot of sound and fury as the story plays out. But in the end nothing much happens, no characters come together and the alien hasn't even landed on Earth yet. It's very odd because there's not even a note on the last page indicating that the story will continue in a volume two or in the comics which inspired the book.

I read this looking for more depth than the weird Tekno Comix series of the mid-90s offered. This gave me that and is a reasonable supplement to the series. But who remembers the comic 25 years after it crashed and burned? (I picked this up for 50c at a used book sale because I vaguely remembered the comic).

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I concur with the sentiments that several readers have already expressed regarding this book. A lot of ambition goes unresolved, and a lot of potential remains unrealized. The story itself is very well expressed and, I believe, demonstrates quite accurately how humanity, especially American humanity, would react to a looming first contact event. I deeply desire to know more of this story, and yet I fear that this thirst will go unquenched. I think if I had to summarize my feelings in a simple idiom I might go with "all talk, no action". That said, it is still a story worth reading even when it does hold up a mirror to the ugliness that humanity is capable of in the face of fear of the unknown.

[Dave Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kept you interested to the end. I'd have given it a higher rating if it had a real ending. Probably should have made the book a lot longer to do that.