Review: The Listeners

The Listeners by James E. Gunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a wonderfully plotted first contact story, with a lovely secondary plot featuring thoughtfully drawn up characters but unfortunately its presentation is bulked up with a dry delivery of just about every quote which ever considered a topic related to SETI. The book is filled with chapters called "Computer Run" which were just piles of these quotes and the end result is that this feels more like an essay than a novel.

"It was the stethoscope with which they took the pulse of the all and noted the birth and death of stars, the probe with which, here on an insignificant planet of an undistinguished star on the edge of its galaxy, they explored the infinite."

The first contact story is told over two generations. Old MacDonald receives a first intelligent signal of extraterrestrial origin while manning the listening post at what is essentially the SETI Institute, but then because the source is 45 light years distant, we must wait 90 years for any potential reply, so Junior MacDonald takes up the task and awaits the anticipated reply.

Junior didn't want the job initially because he had always felt the work was more important to his dad than he himself was. But on taking the job he learns to admire his dad and learns that his dad loved him very much.

"To the Project," Maria said. "May there be a signal received tonight."
MacDonald shook his head. One should not mention what one desires too much. "Tonight there is only us."

Am I the only one who reads the above quote and thinks that MacDonald mustn't desire the "us" he mentions very much then? Well apart from that very nerdy slip up, MacDonald loves to cook dinner and is generally very caring towards his wife even if his work is getting between them to an unhealthy degree. This book shows that it was possible to get gender equality right, at home and in the work place, back in 1972 when many other authors were still mussing it up.

"We have this curious mixed sense of liberation and serenity, as if by contact with creatures who are truly alien we have discovered what it means to be truly human."

It also tackles some racism issues I think mostly respectfully. There was an exchange which was something like "are you happy that you have a black president?" to which the reply was something like "about as happy as you are to have a white man heading your department" and I honestly don't get it. But Old MacDonald is a black man and plenty of his internal dialogue is about him wanting to help his son evade racial discrimination, though his son thinks he's being over dramatic. It's an interesting sub-plot.

For an extremely pro science novel, with an atheist protagonist this book handles religion delicately and respectfully too. It essentially takes the stance that we may interpret whatever we like from what we learn as long as we never interfere with the learning process. Brilliant.

The book starts with a lengthy preface from the author which I did skip but seemed at a glance to give an account of how the story came about.

My only gripe with this book were the "Computer Run" chapters. I don't believe they added any value to the story and they may have worked better as appendices, along with the "Translations" and "Acknowledgements" sections.

So, I do recommend this story but with the advice to skip the Computer Run sections.

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