Second Contact

Rating:
Summary: A Review of this Book
Review: I read this book last night. I enjoyed it completely. It was a strong book overall, but there was one problem: my copy was missing every page after 270, without an ending. In fact, the last word was not even complete. Luckily, I got the rest of the book, but when I finished it, the ending seemed weak. I mean, come on, "Then Becker... _really_ went to work." That has got to be the worst ending I've seen in a while. I still recommend the book though. It is relatively realistic, funny and serious at the same time, enough to make it a book that I didn't want to put down.

Rating:
Summary: Second Contact: A Sci-Fi Mystery -- X-Files meets JAG
Review: Second Contact by Mike Resnick is a wonderfully constructed futuristic mystery novel. The book focuses on a military lawyer who has to defend a starship commander. The commander is brought up on murder charges because he killed a fellow officer. The commander did this because he felt that the other officer was an alien. Well, things aren't what they seem. The lawyer starts investigating the case and, right away, he realizes that someone -- or something -- doesn't want the truth to be found. I won't tell you the ending but it is clever and quite shocking -- but intelligent.

While this novel may appear like the TV series the X-Files at first glance (it actually preceded that series by a few years), Resnick adds his unique sense of wry humor to the novel. This is refreshing because it seems that many authors take sci-fi too seriously or not seriously enough. Resnick has found the perfect balance.

Rating:
Summary: Second Contact: A Sci-Fi Mystery -- X-Files meets JAG
Review: Second Contact by Mike Resnick is a wonderfully constructed futuristic mystery novel. The book focuses on a military lawyer who has to defend a starship commander. The commander is brought up on murder charges because he killed a fellow officer. The commander did this because he felt that the other officer was an alien. Well, things aren't what they seem. The lawyer starts investigating the case and, right away, he realizes that someone -- or something -- doesn't want the truth to be found. I won't tell you the ending but it is clever and quite shocking -- but intelligent.

While this novel may appear like the TV series the X-Files at first glance (it actually preceded that series by a few years), Resnick adds his unique sense of wry humor to the novel. This is refreshing because it seems that many authors take sci-fi too seriously or not seriously enough. Resnick has found the perfect balance.

Rating:
Summary: An Engaging Sci Fi Mystery - but dated
Review: Second Contact is a hard to put down Sci Fi mystery. Military lawyer Maj Max Becker doesn't believe his client is sane when he claims that the two crewmembers he killed were aliens, but he will argue the defense that his client wants. Suddenly, though, witnesses begin to disappear, and Max begins to suspect that maybe something really is being covered up. With the help of a hard-nosed computer genius, Max is in a race to discover the truth before the two of them wind up dead.

I really enjoyed this book. I had trouble putting it down and was in a hurry to find out what really was going on. However the computer science Second Contact is terribly dated. The novel seems to have been published in 1990 before the internet took off. A major portion of the plot is uncovered by breaking into computer systems, but there is no mention of the internet. All access is achieved modems and the phone system. At one point they use the Library of Congress, "the biggest English language database in the world", whereas now the same research would have been done on the web. Although the novel is set in 2065, none of the computer technology used is beyond what exsisted in the late 80s except for some voice recognition. It doesn't take the enjoyment out of the read, but it makes it seem like a classic novel from the 50s and 60s where you ignore the flawed science.

Overall Second Contact is a very enjoyable, hard-to-put-down read, and I highly recommend it.