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theartolater's review
2.0
I love a good first contact story, and I love a good Haldeman tome, but this was neither. Instead, we get a snapshot of the world in 2054 with the characters that are somewhat involved with the situation that bookends the story, putting the contact and sci-fi elements on the back burner to cover a secondary story that's incredibly difficult to care about on a whole. Disappointing.
davidr's review
2.0
In the year 2054, Astronomer Aurora Bell detects and easily decodes a signal that is transmitted from a super-fast space craft. The space craft is flying at over 99% of the speed of light, but quickly decelerating as it is on a straight-line course for Earth. The signal is simple and short, "We are coming". And that is how this story begins.
The remainder of the story is all about how people react to the news that an alien space craft will reach the Earth in three months, exactly on New Years Day. The plot is silly, unbelievable, and becomes really crazy after a while. Indeed, the book is entertaining, but you will not get any deep insights into human (or alien) nature by reading it. I do not recommend this book.
The remainder of the story is all about how people react to the news that an alien space craft will reach the Earth in three months, exactly on New Years Day. The plot is silly, unbelievable, and becomes really crazy after a while. Indeed, the book is entertaining, but you will not get any deep insights into human (or alien) nature by reading it. I do not recommend this book.
arbieroo's review
3.0
This book doesn't offer much in the way of original SF ideas and the ending is a damp squib, but it's interesting for the way it is constructed. It is a First Contact story with a premise similar to that of Sagan's Contact.
There are multiple viewpoints but instead of rotating around the characters and giving each perspective over the whole time period of the story, time progresses continually. Viewpoint switches are like momentum transfer in collisions; one character bumps into another and then suddenly we are off somewhere else in that second person's head! Think a little about how hard it would be to construct a novel that way and yet tell a good story well! I think there are a couple of times Haldeman can't quite make it work and we have to leap across town but not very many. Haldeman carries it off with impressive skill and the narrative is easy to follow and understand - so: technically impressive but not the best Haldeman can do in terms of SF ideas.
There are multiple viewpoints but instead of rotating around the characters and giving each perspective over the whole time period of the story, time progresses continually. Viewpoint switches are like momentum transfer in collisions; one character bumps into another and then suddenly we are off somewhere else in that second person's head! Think a little about how hard it would be to construct a novel that way and yet tell a good story well! I think there are a couple of times Haldeman can't quite make it work and we have to leap across town but not very many. Haldeman carries it off with impressive skill and the narrative is easy to follow and understand - so: technically impressive but not the best Haldeman can do in terms of SF ideas.
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