Synopsis:
In 2036, the alien equivalent arrived on Earth.
When the news leaks to the press, a global wave of fear, panic, and disinformation leaves people to wonder if the damage can ever be undone. In an attempt to quell unrest, several world governments begin an open exchange of ideas and information, hoping to understand the alien signal. As decades and centuries pass, humanity works together to answer one question.
Review:
*I read this novella as part the judging group The Secret Scribes for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS) semi-finals phase. The following review is strictly my personal thoughts as each novella will be reviewed by two judges to be as objective as possible.*
A first contact story told over the course of a couple hundred years, After the Syzygy is an interesting sci-fi tale with far lower stakes than we typically get in such stories, focusing mostly on the ‘how’ and ‘why’, not so much the ‘who’.
Told in 6 time periods over 350ish years, this novella starts with the first signal from an alien species in 2036 to humanity’s first meeting with said extraterrestrials in 2389. Each ‘episode’ comes with its own cast of characters and advancement of our knowledge of our universe and our place in space, as well as countries actually setting aside their differences to reach a common goal. There’s definitely some aliens, some space travel, and some adventure, but most of the episodes are very low action.
Because of the episodic nature of the time periods, there is a lot of tension placed on the dialogue. A lot of the worldbuilding comes in the dialogue between characters (who are mostly politicians or scientists) as well as the advancement of the plot, so to speak. There is very little physical action in this story, so the weight lies upon the cast of each episode to give us drama or tension. Some of the cast was far easier to get attached to than others. There wasn’t a ton of character growth in most of the episodes, but one specific character (first contact) did grow quite a bit, so he was probably my favorite character and his episode overall was my top scene.
This story was a strange one for me. I didn’t dislike it, nor did I really really like it, it was very middling of a read, but this is definitely a me thing, not a story thing as the scenes are really well written. I found some episodes to be very engaging, such as the first pilot one (some very good human to human interaction), as well as the first contact scene mentioned above. Those were not only great sci-fi scenes, but the gravity of the characters were magnetic. And then some of the other episodes were just ho-hum for me, that read as more just to move the plot forward. The final scene when humans travel to the signal’s home planet was pretty darn fun. I don’t need shoot-em up alien invasions, but I would have liked to see a bit more things happening, less discussion of things that happened. For example, in the first pilot scene, while it was really really strong, I would have liked to see him in the actual cockpit and going to space.
The prose was great and the dialogue excellent. Sanderson clearly has an ear for dialogue, as the exposition and worldbuilding was done to sheer perfection because of the whip-smart dialogue. The pacing was fine, some episodes were stronger than others. This story reminds me a lot of the movie Contact but without a lot of the drama, and I wish there was a bit more drama to make me care a bit more. Again, this is a me thing.
For a first contact, almost cozy-esque novella, After the Syzygy really strikes a chord. It won’t be for everyone, but it definitely was an interesting view of our potential future.
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