Factoring Humanity - Softcover

Sawyer, Robert J.

3.82

3,694 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812571290 ISBN 13: 9780812571295

Publisher: Tor Books, 1999

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In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously. When Heather achieves a breakthrough, the message reveals a startling new technology that rips the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage of human evolution. In concert with Kyle's discoveries of the nature of consciousness, the key to limitless exploration---or the end of the human race---appears close at hand. Sawyer has created a gripping thriller, a pulse-pounding tour of the farthest reaches of technology. "Factoring Humanity" is a 1999 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.

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Review:

Receiving a message from another, alien civilisation is not enough; you have then to decode it. Heather and her husband Kyle once tried to make sense of the message's geometric riddles and set it aside. It is when she is torn apart by her daughter's accusations of child abuse--she loses whether Kyle is a monster or Rebecca deluded--that Heather tries again, and has a wacky idea born of desperation. Perhaps she needs to get closer to the problem; perhaps she needs literally to get inside it. And when she does, she finds more riddles--just how to cope with knowing the whole truth about everyone and everything? Is this why an old boyfriend committed suicide? Is this an alien kindness, or a trap? Sawyer's novel has its betraying touches of modishness and melodrama, but it also has the charm that comes from good sense convincingly exhibited. If the fate of humanity is to be decided, it is always better done by someone as likeable as Sawyer's Heather. Science is not necessarily best done in an ivory tower; Sawyer is insightful on the way good work is done in the middle of crisis and the everyday. --Roz Kaveney

From the Back Cover:

By the nebula award winner

For ten years alien data has been pouring in from the Alpha Centauri system, but political protocol has, so far, prevented any response being made. And so far only the first eleven pages of the material has been decoded successfully...

...Psychologist Heather Davis is working on it, but when she suddenly breaks through to the heart of the message, she finds herself in the fourth dimension. She is part of the Overmind and experiencing a massive dose of the first true empathy the human race has ever been granted. It's her personal life and history she thereby learns about. Meanwhile, a warning to all evolved lifeforms awaits interpretation. It may even be a threat...

"Excellent, innovative and imaginative"
'The Washington Post'

"The sense of fun and adventure SF had in its so-called Golden Age... a modern sensibility... the best of both worlds"
'The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'

"Canada's answer to Michael Crichton"
'Montreal Gazette'

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