Review: Highly readable speculation about first contact
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 2, 2011
First contact, the initial meeting of humans and other intelligent, space-faring beings from elsewhere in the universe, has been portrayed in sci-fi literature in just about every was imaginable. Under Peter Cawdron we can add one more potential way for such a momentous event to take place.In Anomaly, the first contact takes place in New York just outside the United Nations, when a spherical shape that includes portions of the street and adjacent buildings begins rotating slowly. Or more precisely, the elements within the sphere hold still while the world around it continues to rotate, making it appear that the pavement, trees, parts of buildings, etc. caught up in the anomaly appear to slowly spin around. (Trust me, this really does make sense when you read the book.)Unlike other novels of first contact, there are no small bald people with big eyes to lead Richard Dreyfus into the mothership. Nor are there slimy monsters intent on enslaving mankind. Author Peter Cawdron has placed this book squarely in the realm of science. It's nice to encounter sci-fi where the emphasis is on the "sci" part. Cawdron obviously knows his stuff when it comes to speculating how humans and an interstellar visitor might communicate and teach each other about themselves.Though Cawdron's style is a bit clunky in places, overall the book is highly readable. The only thing that rang untrue to me was elevating a reporter who happened to be on the scene to the status of spokesperson for the scientists who descend on the site. Government agencies are notoriously distrusting of reporters and it's far more likely they would have brought along their own spokesperson.Being an idependently produced book, there was the occasional typo scattered throughout the book. However, the only one that really bothered me was a reference made to our ancestors coming out of the savannah. Actually, they came out of the jungle and onto the savannah since it was by leaving the trees and moving onto open grasslands where early man learned to walk upright.All that aside, I did enjoy Anomaly. It's not likely to be confused with Dostoyevsky, but it does earn its place as thoughtful entertainment.