Claire McCague
Autor de The Rosetta Man
Sobre El Autor
Créditos de la imagen: Claire McCague
Obras de Claire McCague
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- Canada
- Biografía breve
- Claire McCague is a writer, scientist, and folk musician who fabricates nanostructured materials by day and spins words into scripts and books as the stars rise. She lives and doesn’t sleep much in British Columbia.
Claire McCague has spent time playing with focused electron beams, femtosecond laser beams, neutron beams and plain, old x-rays. She has a doctorate in chemistry, achieved explicitly to support her arts habits, and spends her days trying to save the world through development of nanostructured materials for sustainable energy conversion systems. Claire performs regularly with the Sybaritic String Band and her plays have been featured in festivals across Canada.
Miembros
Reseñas
I received a review copy of this from BookSirens and did not realize that it was a sequel, so I had to read the first before this one. I don't think this would have fared well without the context. As it is, it is a bit different from the first. More technical, less "new idea", more "different idea", and a slide or three into the surreal. Ms. McCague weaves multiple story lines again into a fast paced inner-ear-dizzying folding with most of the original cast and a few new players. No spoiling, but I suspect there is another in the works. This time, though, I'll have to wait like everyone else.… (más)
I received a review copy of The Rosetta Mind, not realizing it was a sequel, so I had to read this first (and I expect the context here is necessary for that book.)
This is the second humans meet aliens and have to communicate with them book I’ve read in the past month. And in both, we don’t do well. Clever, a different take, there is a fairly good understanding of the military, a pretty good understanding of the civilian authorities and a better understanding of scientists and humans (again, we don’t do well…with others or ourselves.) Told in multiple, interlaced threads, this is a gripping page-turner of a story. I’m curious and ready now to get into The Rosetta Mind. I liked this line:
“I think the status quo is about to have its ass handed to it.”… (más)
This is the second humans meet aliens and have to communicate with them book I’ve read in the past month. And in both, we don’t do well. Clever, a different take, there is a fairly good understanding of the military, a pretty good understanding of the civilian authorities and a better understanding of scientists and humans (again, we don’t do well…with others or ourselves.) Told in multiple, interlaced threads, this is a gripping page-turner of a story. I’m curious and ready now to get into The Rosetta Mind. I liked this line:
“I think the status quo is about to have its ass handed to it.”… (más)
Esta reseña ha sido escrita por los Primeros Reseñadores de LibraryThing.The Rosetta Man by Claire McCague. A man who is irresistible to squirrels and has the ability to mentally communicate with animals is brought in to help communicate with alien visitors to New Zealand. There is, of course, a big international team, political and military jockeying for position. I found it amusing, but also affecting. I did think the ending abrupt and inconclusive, and hope that at some point there’s more to the story. Reviewed from a copy received through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program in return for an honest review.… (más)
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 2
- Miembros
- 78
- Popularidad
- #229,022
- Valoración
- 3.5
- Reseñas
- 35
- ISBNs
- 2
This is a fast paced story with many strands and lots of characters, which I sometimes have difficulty with. The central part of the story is so intriguing, so well written, and so vivid, that I forgave myself when I got lost with the complexities and just carried on regardless. I suspect a re-reading would be beneficial and I’d enjoy it even more. Most of my confusions are down to being unfamiliar with the pet names for various types of military hardware, and I was more at home with the vagaries of the swarms of animals that helped track Estlin (our hero) across the Pacific. I mean, can you imagine it – message from the coastguard: I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ve got ten thousand rabbits crowding the cliffs looking out to sea. Add bats, cuttlefish and Russian squirrels with tracking devices… Yes, I suppose light-hearted does come into it, but it’s hell for Estlin.
At the heart of it all is the fact that he, almost alone in the world, can communicate with the aliens that selected New Zealand as their place to make the world aware of their existence. There’s some serious maths involved in the description of how they got here, a theme that wends in and out of the narrative, helping to prove that Estlin really is communicating and not making it all up.
By the time I finished, I wished I’d read Ms McCague’s bio, or I’d have realised I could be out of my depth earlier. Daytime job, nanotechnology. If I don’t keep my insecure writer head on, I am going to be seriously dissuaded from doing scifi books, since my science knowledge is stuck around 2000. Either that or I’ll have to check out some new grad-school science books. But no, I can go with what I know and can invent, just as Ms McCague does. But it’s brilliantly written, with fabulous descriptions of the communication methodology, and overall, seriously good.
With aliens.
Set partly on Samoa.
With a man who talks to animals, rather than people.
What’s not to like?
… (más)