'The Rosetta Man' by Claire McCague is a science fiction novel that explores the theme of first contact between humans and alien beings known as the Wae. The story follows Estlin Hume, a character with a unique ability to communicate with animals, who gets involved in a complex geopolitical situation when the Wae arrive on Earth. The book delves into themes of interstellar travel, telepathic communication, and the political implications of interacting with extraterrestrial life forms. The writing style is described as fresh, engaging, and filled with speculative math and energetic storytelling that keeps readers hooked until the end.

Characters:

Characters are carefully crafted yet can sometimes feel caricatured, lacking clear protagonists or antagonists due to a broad cast, leading to occasional confusion.

Writing/Prose:

The writing style is mostly fluid with intermittent disjointedness, combining humor, intrigue, and scientific concepts, showcasing the author's background as a scientist.

Plot/Storyline:

The story initiates with interesting character introductions but becomes muddled partway through, focusing more on ideas than traditional plot structure, culminating in an open-ended conclusion that hints at future developments.

Setting:

The setting is predominantly in New Zealand and features a geopolitical backdrop, exploring themes related to first contact with aliens and involving international characters.

Pacing:

The pacing is generally quick but becomes inconsistent towards the end, affecting reader engagement and making it challenging for some to finish.

Estlin Hume was ignoring the squirrel on his bedside table. The squirrels in the closet and under the bed were easy to ignore — they’d settled and were dreaming quietly — but the one on the table want...

Notes:

The main character, Estlin Hume, has a unique ability to communicate mentally with animals.

The story involves first contact with aliens called the Wae who have animal-like appearances.

Many physicists in the story have overlapping personalities, making it hard to differentiate them.

The narrative is described as messy and repetitive, especially during the mid-point of the book.

It explores themes of geopolitics and first contact in a light-hearted way.

The book ends without a traditional climax, leaving room for a sequel.

Characters are portrayed more as humans doing their jobs, not strictly as heroes or villains.

Hume is compared to Dr. Doolittle due to his animal communication skills.

There are complaints about the disjointed transitions between scenes and characters.

The aliens in the story are so different from humans that it adds to their intrigue.

From The Publisher:

Wanted: Translator for first contact.

Immediate opening. Danger pay allowance.

"The Rosetta Man is an intriguing alien first contact novel-with non-verbal aliens." - Nicole Luiken

About the book:

When aliens finally make first contact, they abduct Estlin Hume from his home and take him across the globe to act as translator - too bad he has no idea what they're saying.

Estlin Hume lives in Twin Butte, Alberta surrounded by a horde of affectionate squirrels. His involuntary squirrel-attracting talent leaves him evicted, expelled, fired and near penniless until two aliens arrive and adopt him as their translator. Yanked around the world at the center of the first contact crisis, Estlin finds his new employers incomprehensible. As he faces the ultimate language barrier, unsympathetic military forces converging in the South Pacific keep threatening to kill the messenger. The question on everyone's mind is why are the aliens here? But Estlin's starting to think we'll happily blow ourselves up in the process of finding that out.

About the Author:

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.

"What makes The Rosetta Man stand-out? An unusually dense squirrel population for sci-fi. It's light-hearted, accessible sci-fi with exotic present day settings and a pair of aliens who are focused on observing the revealing chaos their visit creates." - Claire McCague, author

A perfect sci-fi romp for fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

What can you read after
The Rosetta Man?

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The Rosetta Man

Claire McCague

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What can you read after The Rosetta Man?

What can you read after
The Rosetta Man?