This is a long shot with very little details, but maybe someone will know the book name or author.
It was a book that I believe I borrowed from a school or public library.
Story Plot:
Earth learns that the Asteroid Belt between Mar and Jupiter was once a planet. It may have been inhabited by an advance race long ago and had a catastrophe or war that resulted in the planet being destroyed.
Thanks.
And if I recall correctly some artifacts were found that lead to this conclusion.
How long ago did you read it? I think the Boundary series by Eric Flint and Ryk Spoor has some elements like that. I also vaguely remember other books with similar plot lines from several decades ago. Raiders from the Rings by Alan E. Nourse, maybe?
Ask on google groups rec.arts.sf.written, here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.arts.sf.written
Inherit the Stars by James P Hogan (1977) has that theme, the planet was called Minerva and its' moon was pushed out of orbit by the explosion and was captured by Earth to become our moon.
The book blurb says:
The man on the Moon was dead. They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils. His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave. They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him. All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old -- and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed!
There were I thought 2 other books in the series,The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978) and Giants' Star (1981) but a quick trip to Wikipedia shows there are 2 more, Entoverse (1991) and Mission to Minerva (2005) so I may have some shopping to do although the reviews of these last 2 books isn't exactly enthusiastic!
Inherit the Stars by James P Hogan (1977) has that theme, the planet was called Minerva and its' moon was pushed out of orbit by the explosion and was captured by Earth to become our moon.
Based upon the original request, this is what I was thinking as well. I have all five of those books in a box in my storage unit.
Sparky-1953
How long ago did you read it?
I believe some where between the very late 60's through the 70's time frame.
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Franco
Ask on google groups rec.arts.sf.written.
Thanks a new resource to utilize.
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ringill98
Thanks I'll have to look at them. If not the one, it is something new to read.
Thank you all.
Can you remember any more about it, as Heinlein had a few stories where that happened, and in some the asteroids were being mined.
I really can not remember much...it was a hail mary request.
I was reading "the portal worlds" series and I think it was the "a cloud over brenham" story
had a reference to the asteroid belt in the Sol solar system as once being an advance planet.
That little reference caused me to remember a library book that I once read that had the same concept.
I don't know if libraries always keep books once they acquire them, but if I had a clue I could
search the a library or online to try to read it again.
Series: https://storiesonline.net/series/624/the-portal-worlds
Story: https://storiesonline.net/s/55989/genius
Story: https://storiesonline.net/s/58881/a-cloud-over-brenham
Author: https://storiesonline.net/a/Wandering_Lanes
I would like to thank everyone for their input.
It gives me something to read and one of them might be the story, another great
story or help me remember more.
During the 1960s through to the late 1980s I read a lot of science fiction, I'd bought. Mostly I read what are often referred to as 'The Campbell Authors' as he mentored them while John W Campbell was the editor of various scifi magazines. Most of them became big names in the genre. During that time I read several stories that fit your description as is, which is why I was asking more details to try an narrow it down for you. However, if you check the following authors' bibliography on Wikipedia you may spot the story you want as these are the authors of most of the works I was buying then.
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C Clark
Robert A Heinlein
Larry Niven
Freerick Pohl
L Sprague de Camp
A E Van Vogt
Theodore Sturgeon
Gordon R Dickson
Robert Silverberg
Lester del Rey
Philip K Dick
Algis Budrys
Jack Vance
Poul Anderson
Jerry Pournelle
Keith Laumer
Roger Zelazny
Gene Roddenberry
These are many of my favorite authors while growing up. The list also included EE "Doc" Smith, Jack Vance, A E Nourse, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Brradley, and F M Busby. There were also a pair of brothers from England whose day jobs were in hard science (physics, chemistry, math,?) who wrote SciFi on the side that I enjoyed but I just can't remember their names.
Re the English authors - perhaps you were thinking if the father-son pair Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle?
I recognize some of the titles by Fred Hoyle so that must be who I was thinking of. I read a couple of his books in 8th grade and that's about the time I was thinking of.
I vaguely remember a story about an asteroid miner who comes across artifacts from an extinct civilization that apparently existed on the planet that became the asteroid belt. Can't remember where or by who.
