he year is 2054, and America and the world are greatly changed, but somehow inherently
recognizable and familiar. The greenhouse effect mandates that pedestrians slather on
sun block. Polluting traffic--when it's allowed at all--follows cybernetic roadways.
The voice-responsive Internet penetrates everywhere, from the automated office to the
security-minded intelligent house. Police carry stunners, and gangs retaliate with
deadly firepower. Washington boasts a female president, more militaristic and
coarser then any previous male officeholder. And various hot spots around the
globe--including, nostalgically, France, Germany and Greece--offer flashpoints
for a potential World War III.
In the midst of this extrapolated business-as-usual scenario, Aurora "Rory" Bell,
an astronomy professor resident in Gainesville, Fla., upsets the delicate
sociopolitical applecart by finding an alien message concealed in a gamma-ray burst.
The message, tracked to some kind of moving artificial object within the solar system,
simply announces that its senders are on their way to Earth. Once this news reaches
the public, naturally, the repercussions are many, from the level of the man in
the street all the way to the White House.
Meanwhile, however, the reader is swept up in the representative lives of
Gainesville's citizens. Norman Bell, Rory's husband and a talented composer,
is suddenly subject to blackmail for his past homosexual activity (such doings
having been outlawed in the conservative South). This subplot and its dramatic
resolution forms a large portion of the novel. Meanwhile, over the course of
three tense months, the small stories of a large cast of average folks--bartenders,
sex workers, thugs, street people, restaurant owners, administrators, reporters and
politicians--are woven into the growing hullabaloo about the aliens. One pivotal
figure, Rory's assistant, Pepe Parker, seems to know more than he should about
these extraterrestrial visitors.
A second message from the aliens is received, dictating the terms of their landing
at Cape Kennedy and promising a small demonstration of their powers with the
destruction of Mars' moon Phobos. This ultimatum
prompts a violent political crisis which leaves the USA shaken and sends the Bells
on the run. When the aliens do land on Jan. 1, 2060, the message they deliver
is not the expected one, but even stranger.
Funky first contact in Florida
"First-contact" stories occupy a central and cherished place within the SF field.
But so many have come down the pike that it's hard to engineer a fresh treatment of
the theme. Haldeman here achieves a sense of novelty, but only by pushing the actual
first-contact incident almost entirely offstage. The alien landing and speech occupy
merely a few hasty pages at the book's end. It's as if The Day the Earth Stood
Still had reserved Klaatu and Gort until the closing minutes of the film.
What we are left with is highly entertaining, however. Haldeman deftly adopts
the Gumbo Noir tactics of such writers as Carl Hiaasen for a near-future
caper-cum-thriller. Bumbling gangsters, corrupt politicians, drug addicts,
cyber-pornstars, crazy bag ladies, intrepid reporters: the varied cast vividly
carries the nonstop action swiftly along. The author's main innovation is
frequently changing points of view that shift in logical ways, based upon the
character interactions in the previous sections. By putting you behind the
eyes of so many characters, Haldeman achieves a wider and more complex presentation
than the book's relatively short length would seem to permit.
Haldeman's story is neither deep nor radically new, and the trick ending, while
crafty, seems O.-Henryish. Additionally, with so many characters, the fates of
quite a few are sloughed off without resolution. And one, the famous preacher named
Kale, receives a lot of allusions but surprisingly never makes an appearance. But
this hard-nosed examination of how an historic incident that should be a blessing
instead brings out the worst in everyone will definitely draw the reader in by the
lapels.
