Author:  Robert Charles Wilson

This is a real page turner ­- once started it is hard to put this book down.

Science Fiction abounds with bug-eyed monsters who may look weird but who are really only ourselves in disguise. They have all our foibles and faults, they want power, riches and possessions. Good Science Fiction writers challenge these stereotypes by creating aliens who really are alien. They create a real sense of "The Other". J.B.S. Haldane once wrote: "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."  Wilson has a rich imagination and ably creates this sense of otherness in the universe he creates.  The aliens we do meet are extremely strange and those we don’t meet, implied only by their works, leave us wondering about the nature of the universe and of intelligent life.

Blind Lake is a mysterious Observation facility set down in the vastness of the Minnesota plains. In this Observatory, through a window in the space/time continuum, the watchers are studying another planet and one of its inhabitants in particular.  Just what are they observing, and how? Why is the centre suddenly cut off from the rest of the country with no communication of any kind in or out?

Wilson poses the question: How far can our strict empirical scientific method take us in the face of something way beyond its capabilities to interpret? He explores the differences and dichotomies between cold, hard empirical science and intelligent intuition. Can everything be empirically observed, measured, teased out and explained? How much can we confidently know? What is the place of intuition in science? Does the simple act of studying something -­ or someone -­ affect the subject and therefore the outcome?

Within the compound at Blind Lake are the small child Tessa and her mother Marguerite who is one of the watchers at the Observatory. On the human plane theirs is a dramatic core story involving Marguerite’s estranged and very controlling husband. Marguerite battles both with her husband and scientific protocol in her attempts to both protect her daughter and to understand the “subject" of her studies. Tessa’s perceptions are unusual, she is very sensitive to her surroundings and Wilson writes beautifully of her observations of the wide, wild Minnesota country and weather. He binds Marguerite’s and Tessa’s gripping story into the strange events at the Observatory.  

This is a very satisfying book which works on many levels. I look forward to reading more of Robert Charles Wilson’s work.