Amazon.com Review
Factoring Humanity will undoubtedly satisfy Sawyer fans, as well as those looking for positive-future scenarios à la Carl Sagan's
Contact. Rather than a galactic vision of war and peace, this novel is localized in the extreme: the plot revolves around Heather, a psychology professor struggling to decipher extraterrestrial messages, and her estranged husband, Kyle, on the brink of the biggest computer science breakthrough of all time. What makes
Factoring Humanity work is that Sawyer deals with vast ideas such as alien contact, quantum mechanics, and the human overmind, but does so to a deeply personal effect.
Sawyer, like many writers of near-future science fiction, has an unfortunate tendency to be too rooted in today, to make so many casual references to our present that they draw undue attention to themselves, making it difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief. This fascination with 20th-century pop culture crowds the real story and real details into a corner and underscores an apparent lack of creativity in painting future landscapes. Otherwise, and forgiving Sawyer's breathtakingly myopic view of Native Canadians and rather bland prose, this is exciting, readable science fiction that will take you where no one has gone before--and you'll never forget the ending. --Jhana Bach
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
It's the personal implications of first contact that Sawyer (Illegal Alien) dramatizes in his disturbing and uneven new novel. Set in Canada, circa 2017, the story focuses on Heather and her computer-scientist husband, Kyle, who have separated following the suicide of their daughter Mary. When younger daughter Rebecca confronts her parents and accuses her father of molesting her, the family starts to shake apart. Redemption comes in the unlikely form of alien altruism: the messages from Alpha Centauri that psychologist Heather has studied for years prove to be blueprints for a "psychospace" device that enables her to see into the overmind of humanity, and to know anyone's deepest thoughts. In a flash, Kyle is exonerated, Rebecca apologizesAand her nasty, manipulative therapist is blamed for the false accusation. Although the novel ends with Heather greeting the first starship from Alpha Centauri, the bulk of the plot centers around the family's own mystery, and so the conclusion comes off as anti-climactic. Sawyer also includes too many digressions about the cultural significance of Seinfeld, Star Trek bloopers and quantum physics, delivering a tale that ultimately works more as a study of the human heart than as believable story of alien encounter. (June) FYI: Sawyer, whose The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula for Best Novel, was recently elected president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
