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Product Description
The age-old question about alien existence and human contact is explored in a new way in this collection of six novellas, previously anthologized in Analog magazine. When disillusioned aerospace engineer Adrian Mast buys a book at a remainder sale, the last things he expects to find in its appendix are alien spacecraft designs. With the help of the bookstore owner, Adrian tracks down the author—only to find him in a mental institution anguishing over the intentions of the aliens who sent the designs to him. By bluffing a bureaucrat intent on thwarting their progress, the two friends continue their quest for the stars and go ahead with the spacecraft designs. Having successfully launched their ship 15 years later, the questions that remain are What were the intentions of the aliens? and Is mankind ready to face what's out there?
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MarchRose (Italy) (2012/07/28):
from the back cover:First came James Gunn's The Listeners, then Carl Sagan's Contact and the film it inspired. Now Gunn's latest novel, Gift from the Stars, puts a new twist on one of the oldest themes in science fiction: aliens, and what happens when they reveal themselves to us. "Gift from the Stars" explores how it would really happen: accidentally, over bureaucratic resistance and personal betrayal, with disturbing questions, paranoia, humor and, most of all, the unexpected. Why would aliens send us designs for a spaceship? What do they want from us? Are their intentions benevolent or malign? Nothing is what is seems as a resourceful aerospace engineer and a determined bookstore owner set out to find the answers in a search that leads them through unforeseen peril and treachery to the end of the galaxy itself.
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