What do I say?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this up. I am 100% sure that I didn't take in everything it had to offer. I think it's one of those books I will want to reread every so often.

There is so much weight within the pages, with complex thought, philosophical and ethical questions, and existential themes woven throughout.

Yet, it's a fairly simple story, told well in straightforward prose. Stripped of unnecessary trappings, yet vivid, clear, and colorful.

It reminds me, in small ways, of Jurassic Park and the themes of life finding a way, and the question of humanity plowing ahead because we can, without stopping to ask whether we should. It also has smatterings of the feel Contact gave me of paying closer attention to the link between science and what it means to be human, to have faith.

This is by no means a "read-alike," at all. But some of the same threads are in Nayler's story.

Good sci-fi should ask such questions. It should hold up a mirror, forcing us to look at ourselves with an enquiring and critical eye. To get a little uncomfortable. To look ahead a little more carefully. To care, period.

This book does all of that and more. It's a wonderful debut, and I would gladly read whatever he writes next.