The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 June 2005
by James E. Gunn
The SETI Project, which years ago became funded largely by private funds, is the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence by means (mostly) of radio communication. SETI today involves many other projects related to life in the universe, including the search for planets (of which many have now been found) and the nature of biology and evolution in alien environments (exobiology). At its start, back in the late 50s and early 60s, some young scientists sent a message in the general direction of the Hercules globular star cluster (M13). Its simple design, indicating our presence on a corner of our galaxy, appears to be much of the basis of this novel, published in 1972. Here, Robert MacDonald leads The Project, a SETI-like search for extraterrestrial radio transmissions using the Arecibo radio observatory (superceded in the future timeline of this book by on-orbit observatories). It is 2025, and MacDonald is having trouble keeping The Project alive in an indifferent funding environment. After fifty years, they've found nothing, after all. But MacDonald argues for the Project and the kind of searching philosophy that underlies all such work. The search can be very long, decades and centuries, but the potential payoff for mankind is tremendous. Still, there are doubters, and these include the president of the United States, and the leader of a religious sect called the Solitarians, who believe we are unquestionably alone in the universe. Into this shaky landscape falls a message from the Capella star system, just 45 lightyears from Earth. The message is simple, like that of the one sent from Earth years ago, but its implications are complex and massive. Characters argue about its meaning, and whether to respond. In this, there is very rich ground for fiction, and this book, being so short, explores few potential stories. Perhaps because it was serialized in some science-fiction magazines, it suffers from a simple structure. It is somewhat repetitious in its telling and in some of its tropes. But the book is provocative and earnest, at the very least. The book is almost identical in plot to Carl Sagan's later Contact (and most especially, the movie of the same name). Sagan explored the same ground in a similar style, though he took it to a different conclusion. In the end, the last great book on the subject hasn't yet been written. James Gunn's interpretation is thought-provoking, though, and treads on realistic ground.
See also: [Contact by Carl Sagan]