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 Benign Visitors from Outer Space Apr 01, 2001
This theme of this novel concerns first visit to earth of a benign intelligent alien species and the reaction of the governments and people to this event. While plots of this nature have appeared many times over the years in science fiction literature, the treatment here is influenced by background of the author, who has been a research physicist at a government laboratory, academia, and industry. As a result, the author has developed a perceptive insight into how a situation of this nature might be handled by the government of the United States and other nations. This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this work. One can easily imagine the varied reactions to this event by various segments of our society such as extreme fringes of the religious fundamentalists and trigger-happy military.In developing his story of the background of the aliens, the author creates a race of friendly humanoid types, who have evolved over centuries into creatures with significantly higher intelligence than humans and so able to solve the problems of traverse the vast distances of intergalactic space. On having reached the neighborhood of planet earth, the problems of establishing communication with a completely different species and indicating their own needs presents an interesting anthropological issue which is deftly handled by the author. The result is a novel which at first sight appears to be similar to others involving aliens making first contact with earthlings. However, the story is told alternately from the viewpoint of each species and this interaction generates interest as the story progresses. Since both the aliens and most of the humans appear benign and reasonable, the story may lack the conflict and violence of other tales of this nature. This may preclude it from being adapted to other media such as movies and television, but the printed book version can be enjoyed by aliens and humans of all ages.
A Good Read Jul 14, 2002
By Art Kerns
I found reading this novel to be a pleasure and this is from a person who does not read this genre often. In addition to learning fascinating facts about science, Dr. Cohen gives us a good story. His characters, both human and alien, are real and memorable. His descriptions of the Three Mesa area of Arizona is on the mark. Also, interesting is the way he merges and compares Hopi world philosophy with the alien cosmological beliefs. This was a enjoyable novel with a good story line that made me pause and think.
Just like you and me... Apr 25, 2002
... I believe that science fiction should, at its base, be about SCIENCE! I was fascinated by the way that the author took complex and potentially difficult to understand physics and explained it in a way that I, a reader without a vast background in physics, could understand. I also enjoyed the way that the aliens were not portrayed in a prejudiced fashion...their hopes and fears for their home and families were not foreign...they acted much like you would imagine individuals in another civilized culture would act when faced with the unthinkable (you can read the book to find out just what that was). The story went along at a nice pace, and was time well spent!
a breath of fresh air Mar 01, 2002
By Big Hominid
"bighominid"
The world would be a better place if more actual scientists wrote science fiction. I became convinced of this after reading Carl Sagan's "Contact," which made leaps of the imagination that would be impossible for the typical sci-fi writer. Most sci-fi is a costume party. Whatever "science" appears is merely an excuse to drive a conventional, terrestrial plot forward, with aliens as goofy proxies for certain aspects of the human personality, and planets as analogues for places on earth (ever wonder why alien planets are all ice, or all jungle, or all desert?). Very few sci-fi novels actually revel in what science is about: the enjoyment of discovery, the excitement of facing the truly unknown, and the delight of using one's brain to solve real, practical problems. Like "Contact," Dr. Leslie Cohen's "Children of the Lattice" reminds the reader that good science fiction is first and foremost an adventure of the mind. In this fascinating novel, two races, human and alien, are forced by disastrous circumstance to begin a mutual exploration. The tools of that exploration are logic, curiosity, and strangely enough, compassion. "Lattice" is refreshingly free of sci-fi's boilerplate invasion paranoia (only peripheral to the plot here), and devotes the bulk of its pages to exploring what happens when two intelligent species have to learn how to communicate with each other, develop intercultural understandings, and even make some important cosmological discoveries. If you're sick of slogging through the adolescent serial adventures of Jack Laserblood and his beaked, shape-shifting reptilian sidekick Hrothgar Killchicken, I highly recommend the gently paced, eminently intelligent, and cynicism-free "Children of the Lattice."
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