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A review by tome15
Emprise by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
4.0
Kube-McDowell, Michael P. Emprise. The Trigon Disunity. Berkley, 1985.
This first volume of the Trigon Disunity series was a nominee for the Philip K. Dick Award, and one can see why. It deals in the way Dick often did with issues of surveillance and bureaucratic skullduggery. During an almost apocalyptic planetary environmental and economic collapse, we are somehow able to martial the resources to travel out several years to meet an incoming alien starship that has pinged us. The story of getting ready to launch is slow, but once the encounter takes place the drama becomes intense as the political and religious divisions among the crew threaten to upset all the apple carts. There is a scientist who is interested in seeing what evolution has wrought, a militarist who is interested in deciding whether to attack, defend, or surrender, a religious zealot who thinks the aliens will be messengers from God. And there is our protagonist, who has to decide how to mediate the disputes and decide what to do when the aliens turn out to be surprising in many ways.
This first volume of the Trigon Disunity series was a nominee for the Philip K. Dick Award, and one can see why. It deals in the way Dick often did with issues of surveillance and bureaucratic skullduggery. During an almost apocalyptic planetary environmental and economic collapse, we are somehow able to martial the resources to travel out several years to meet an incoming alien starship that has pinged us. The story of getting ready to launch is slow, but once the encounter takes place the drama becomes intense as the political and religious divisions among the crew threaten to upset all the apple carts. There is a scientist who is interested in seeing what evolution has wrought, a militarist who is interested in deciding whether to attack, defend, or surrender, a religious zealot who thinks the aliens will be messengers from God. And there is our protagonist, who has to decide how to mediate the disputes and decide what to do when the aliens turn out to be surprising in many ways.