Two months have passed, since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since, until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Whom should we send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet?
Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find-but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them...
"Watts explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulating hard SF novel, which combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. Watts puts a terrifying and original spin on the familiar alien contact story. "
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Astonishingly readable book. . . . [Watts is] one of the two or three best hard SF writers around, and this is his finest book to date."
Interzone
"A brilliant piece of work, one that will delight fans of hard science fiction, but will also demonstrate to literary fans that contemporary science fiction is dynamic and fascinating literature that demands to be read."
