![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearRollback by Robert J Sawyer was recommended to me by a friend - and, apart from a couple of bumpy sections in the middle, I really enjoyed it.
Don and Sarah Hamilton are celebrating the sixtieth wedding anniversary when they hear that a new message has come through from aliens who originally got in contact decades before. Sarah was instrumental in deciphering the original message and formulating the official response, so she is wanted on the team that will be working on the new message.
A billionaire offers the couple the chance to 'rollback', which will de-age them by more than sixty years - but it doesn't work out quite as planned.
What I really liked about the book is that it's very much character-focused. The story explores all the emotional, practical, physiological and societal impacts of what happens to Don and Sarah, much more than it concentrates on the aliens and the messages.
There are some very clunky, very speechifying sections of exposition, but it's mostly about relationships and how they are affected by what happens.
A lot of the extrapolations of consequences are really great - very credible, very relatable actions and reactions from the characters. But I did think the acknowledgement of the problems with certain aspects of Don's behaviour, in particular, were lacking in places.
Overall, though, this was an interesting, engaging, emotive and entertaining book.
Don and Sarah Hamilton are celebrating the sixtieth wedding anniversary when they hear that a new message has come through from aliens who originally got in contact decades before. Sarah was instrumental in deciphering the original message and formulating the official response, so she is wanted on the team that will be working on the new message.
A billionaire offers the couple the chance to 'rollback', which will de-age them by more than sixty years - but it doesn't work out quite as planned.
What I really liked about the book is that it's very much character-focused. The story explores all the emotional, practical, physiological and societal impacts of what happens to Don and Sarah, much more than it concentrates on the aliens and the messages.
There are some very clunky, very speechifying sections of exposition, but it's mostly about relationships and how they are affected by what happens.
A lot of the extrapolations of consequences are really great - very credible, very relatable actions and reactions from the characters. But I did think the acknowledgement of the problems with certain aspects of Don's behaviour, in particular, were lacking in places.
Overall, though, this was an interesting, engaging, emotive and entertaining book.
