The Palomar Paradox: A SETI Mystery, by Richard Rydon
Book Review by David Hodge
Have you read this book?
So we have the good guys operating a new radio telescope at Mount Palomar in
2028, the sort-of bad guys (Pentagon) who steal a laptop from a seriously ill
girl in a hospital and intermittently obstruct the work of the good guys, and
the really bad guys (probably the CIA) who murder.
SETI is Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and is real. The murder is never solved, nor seriously pursued, at least not on stage, and not by the good guys. Other loose ends abound. Then there are the signals, with no prizes for guessing whether the good guys decide they are genuine (not noise or a hoax). The story is interrupted frequently by science lessons, which vary in intelligibility; some of which actually bear on the story. The good guys? work is interrupted by philosophical maunderings about the aliens and their motives, quite unhindered by the fact that they have no information on which to base such speculation.
Does a billion dollar computer really expire in a shower of sparks and billows of smoke because the plug is pulled?
The writing itself is so-so:
"The computer is acting up." Leila said. [sic]
"And I turned it off," Luper said.
"Really," Karina said.
Half the males in the story have the hots for the young, well-made lady Pentagon intern, though little comes of it except for some unnecessary and unimpressive social byplay. And then there's the stray bits of pathos: the murder, and the death at the end. Most readers will have no trouble figuring out who long before it happens.
I probably won't look too hard for further books in the series (this is number three).
SETI is Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and is real. The murder is never solved, nor seriously pursued, at least not on stage, and not by the good guys. Other loose ends abound. Then there are the signals, with no prizes for guessing whether the good guys decide they are genuine (not noise or a hoax). The story is interrupted frequently by science lessons, which vary in intelligibility; some of which actually bear on the story. The good guys? work is interrupted by philosophical maunderings about the aliens and their motives, quite unhindered by the fact that they have no information on which to base such speculation.
Does a billion dollar computer really expire in a shower of sparks and billows of smoke because the plug is pulled?
The writing itself is so-so:
"The computer is acting up." Leila said. [sic]
"And I turned it off," Luper said.
"Really," Karina said.
Half the males in the story have the hots for the young, well-made lady Pentagon intern, though little comes of it except for some unnecessary and unimpressive social byplay. And then there's the stray bits of pathos: the murder, and the death at the end. Most readers will have no trouble figuring out who long before it happens.
I probably won't look too hard for further books in the series (this is number three).
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