Robert J. Sawyer, Rollback

Rollback

Robert J. Sawyer

Tor, Apr 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0765311089

Almost four decades ago back in 2010 astronomer Sarah Halifax, closing in on her fiftieth birthday, translated the first known message from outer space. She was part of a team that in turn provided mankind's response back to the Sigma Draconis aliens' radio transmission.

Now she is eighty-seven years old when the second message arrives. She is elated, but knows it is too late for her or her spouse of sixty years Don to work the second message. However, robotic technology billionaire and SETI supporter Cody McGavin offers the elderly Halifax couple a chance when he buys a promising untested allegedly Fountain of Youth rejuvenation treatment for them to try. Sarah and Don do, but ironically though she is the key player, he is the one to ROLLBACK the clock to his twenties. Sarah works on interpreting the response while Don feels euphoric and guilty about feeling and looking younger than his grandchildren.

This is an exciting, science-fiction thriller that focuses on ethical questions pertaining to relationships between a couple and between two "pen-pal" species. The storyline is cerebral as Don and Sarah continue to be there for one another yet his needs have changed while she, though disappointed by her failure to regain her youth, prays for one last hurrah in which she will leave behind a legacy of doing what is best for humanity and for those sentient beings sending radio messages from Sigma Draconis, but how to know what is appropriate remains difficult to validate.

Harriet Klausner