Siri Keeton. A man with half a brain – the rest is tech – is sent on a mission with a vampire (!?), a soldier, a linguist and a biologist to make first contact. His job is simple. Observe.
What transpires is a fantastic trip into a truly alien encounter. I’m fairly certain that nothing has come this close to really giving the reader something that is so utterly different from our own expectations of what that encounter may be like. The atmosphere & confusion the book creates is loosely akin to Event Horizon & Alien, while also scratching on themes of consciousness and sentience.
This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.
The addition of a vampire in this novel kept me from picking it up for a long time. My mistake as it doesn’t detract from what is a truly excellent book. 4 1/2 out 5 stars in space.
(Read 3/2/24)