In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be “human”.
Comprised of a crew of priests, a scientific researcher, an AI specialist with a dodgy past, and a married couple who are an engineer and a doctor, they make the trip to the distant planet over several years. But because of relativistic time dilation, ship time is a few months. When they arrive, they make contact with a alien race and establish communication. But, as it turns out, this race was not the one which made the music. In terms of HG Wells’ classic, they met the Eloi, but the music was made by the Morlocks, who have their own culture which is alien far beyond the mission’s understanding.
The book spends a lot of time doing the buildup, and performs extensive character development and story, until towards the end, everything just comes crashing down abruptly. Several of the characters’ stories end without a first or even a second person point of view. It is merely related in third person. After spending over three quarters of the book understanding their psyche and thought process, both the readers and other characters are just informed that they, well, were killed.
The whole book left me feeling frustrated and hollow. I do understand that things can fall apart rather rapidly, but as a deeply invested reader, one cannot help but ask why the characters did not plan and anticipate the events better. The implied answer seems to be a cultural and lingustic disconnect, but even that can, at best, just be inferred and is just tangentially alluded to.
The story is uneven and patchy, and the science is very speculative. Would I recommend this book? Perhaps not.