We Are Not Alone
“We are not alone” is, of course, a phrase made famous as the tagline on posters for the 1977 Steven Spielberg science fiction class Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As a literary theme, however, it predates that film by maybe a century or more. In fact, the idea that human begins on earth are not alone in the universe is one of the cornerstone themes of the entire genre. And this novel is another addition to the substantial catalog of novels, short stories, films, television shows, operas, and everything else that covers the broad concept of predicting just how the people of earth will react once the theory of advanced alien life is proven to be fact.
Humans and Puzzles
Form and content fuse together to pursue an interesting theme that may not hit some readers quite as hard as the whole “first contact” with an alien life form them. In fact, the means by which this theme is explored by actually alienate some readers. That means is an epistolary style of storytelling in which information is conveyed to the reader through a series of interviews conducted by a mysterious and rather shady interlocutor in which certain pieces of information is not made available to the reader who becomes forced to fit those things that are known together as if putting together a 5000 piece jigsaw missing a few hundred pieces. This form is adopted to tell a story that is quite literally about putting together the pieces of a mammoth robot. Then there are the careers of major characters: physicists and geneticists which represent the ultimate in puzzle solving. As the narrative plays out, all these elements work in unison to suggest that there is something distinctly human—part of our hardwired DNA—that urges us to solve puzzles and may well be essential to the processes of evolution.
Trust
The discovery of the paradigm-shifting giant robot that is evidence of ancient visitation by advanced alien life forms is one of those things that people in power are not eager to share for a variety of reasons. And so the knowledge of the existence of the robot parts becomes one of those political issues revolving around trust. Can the government trust the population of the word not to panic and create political instability in the wake of the revelation? Who can be trusted to keep the secret from coming out and what happens when it inevitably does? The robot parts were individually discovered around the globe so which official entity should be entrusted with its care and discovering any secrets or powers the robot might contain? This issue of trust is another foundational theme of the science fiction genre and is very often the engine which drives the conflict created by the other thematic elements. In addition, the exceptionally shady aura of the mysterious person conducting the interviews creates an additional layer of paranoia which supercharges the way this theme plays out.
