Not as good as Haldeman's other books. Its still a quick, fun airplane/lazy Sunday read. ( )

An artifact is disovered in the ocean - and appears to not be human as many tests fail to penetrate it.

An outside expert is brought in to help on the research into it.

After this, there are three strands to this book - the research in to the artificat, and the history of two long-lived alien shapeshifters on the planet, both to converge in the present time at the artifact site.

One of them is a martial killer, able to take the form or any man, and has been in armies since the stone age.

The other remembers back to the thirties and also living in the ocean, as whales, sharks, etc., where it became a boy, and then took a variety of forms after that, often female.
An artifact is disovered in the ocean - and appears to not be human as many tests fail to penetrate it.

An outside expert is brought in to help on the research into it.

After this, there are three strands to this book - the research in to the artificat, and the history of two long-lived alien shapeshifters on the planet, both to converge in the present time at the artifact site.

One of them is a martial killer, able to take the form or any man, and has been in armies since the stone age.

The other remembers back to the thirties and also living in the ocean, as whales, sharks, etc., where it became a boy, and then took a variety of forms after that, often female.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/01... ( )

This is an interesting first contact book, but more of a pure 'what if'. What if there were a race that pre-dated humans by a lot, arrived on earth, and waited for us to appear? What if this race could violate many of the laws of physics we know, what could or would it do? ( )

The always excellent Joe Haldeman does not disappoint here. A Haldeman story always makes you think and introduces you to concepts "out of this world" that are presented in such an orderly and reasonable manner that it creates "the willing suspension of disbelief." ( )

Take a central idea which is anything but fresh, ask Mr. Haldeman to write a book about that idea, and he comes up with a novel that won Science Fiction's prestigious Nebula Award for the year 2005.

The story revolves around two aliens who have been on earth even before life crawled out of the oceans. One of them is a brutal killer, and the other has become almost human during his stay on earth, and both of them are shape-changers. They have been on earth far too long to remember who they got here, but when their spaceship is discovered at the bottom of the ocean and raised by a private American firm, both of them decide to get to it to discover their true origins.

A masterful narrative full of complex ideas wrapped in deceptively simple prose which has become Haldeman's trademark, this is a very engaging book which is simultaneously an entertaining thriller as well as a thought-provoking novel which looks at human nature from a non-human perspective. ( )