Inherit the Plot

I just finished James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars, a 1977 science fiction novel. Astronauts find a 50,000-year-old human corpse on the Moon, and scientists struggle with the mysteries it raises.

Did he come from Earth? (Then why isn't there any evidence of this ancient super-civilization?)
Did he come from another planet? (Then why is his anatomy so exactly human?)

The tension between these two mutually-impossible problems drives the plot. It reminded me a lot of Asimov's writing style: set up a problem, and then make up and disprove one hypothesis after another. Kind of a narrative version of the scientific method.

The characters are weak, (as they usually are in Asimov) but characters aren't the point. The puzzle-work of ideas is the point, and I'm glad to say that my personal hypothesis was completely off the mark.

With that said: the weakest part of the novel is definitely the ending, which concludes with two dramatic new hypotheses- both of which are audacious, both of which have serious logical/evidential holes, but neither of which is questioned or debated by anyone. It's like Hogan was still going strong, and he suddenly ran out of novel.

But I give it a high ranking, regardless. I don't get an Asimov feeling from too many authors, and I treasure it when it happens.