Ancient Shores, published in 1996

1996 in literature

The year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...

, is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel written by Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt is an American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races, and with archaeology or xenoarchaeology....

. It was nominated for the Nebula Award

Nebula Award

The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...

 for Best Novel

Nebula Award for Best Novel

Winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.- Winners and other nominees :...

 in 1997.

Plot introduction

Tom Lasker and his son Will discover an almost pristine boat buried on their North Dakota farm. The mystery deepens when they realize that the boat may have been used to sail on a prehistoric lake that existed in the area 10,000 years ago.

Plot summary

The vast lake, Lake Agassiz

Lake Agassiz

Lake Agassiz was an immense glacial lake located in the center of North America. Fed by glacial runoff at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined, and it held more water than contained by all lakes in the world today.-Conception:First...

, covered much of North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

 and Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 during prehistoric times.

The story begins when farmer Tom Lasker and his son, Will, uncover a seemingly brand new yacht. Found on a landlocked farm, it draws tourists to the area. Max Collingswood, a friend of Tom's, tries to help discover the origins of the boat. Collingswood enlists April Cannon, a worker at a chemical lab who discovers that the yacht is made of an unknown material. In fact, it is a fiberglass

Fiberglass

Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...

-like material with an impossible atomic number

Atomic number

In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...

 (161).

Collingswood and Cannon discover something else on a nearby ridge which is part of a Sioux

Spirit Lake Tribe

The Spirit Lake Tribe is a Sioux tribe. Its reservation is located in east-central North Dakota on the southern shores of Devils Lake...

 reservation

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

. The Sioux assist in its excavation and examination. It turns out to a green glassy roundhouse

Roundhouse

A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...

-like structure, made from the same material.

Eventually, they gain access to it, revealing a dock for the sailboat, but no entrance for it. The discovery that the structure contains the means to access other sites not on Earth sets off a struggle between the Government and the Reservation for control of it.

Characters in "Ancient Shores"

• Tom Lasker – farmer
• Will Lasker – his son
• Max Collingswood – Tom's friend
• April Cannon – chemist
• Elizabeth Silvera – government worker

Major themes

Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

culture and their reaction to and treatment by the modern world.

The nature and responsibilities of government employees who when given orders seem too ready to implement them without dispute.