The Stars Will Speak

Sunspacer #2

by George Zebrowski

When the first alien communication signal reaches our solar system in the twenty-first century, Lissa leaves the safety of her artificial planet and joins those trying to decode the message. For if Lissa and her colleagues cannot translate the language of the stars, civilization will be destroyed.

Genres: Science Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

George Zebrowski was an American science fiction writer and editor who wrote and edited a number of books, and was a former editor of The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He lived with author Pamela Sargent, with whom he co-wrote a number of novels, including Star Trek novels.
Zebrowski won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1999 for his novel Brute Orbits. Three of his short stories, "Heathen God," "The Eichmann Variations," and "Wound the Wind," were nominated for the Nebula Award, and "The Idea Trap" was nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Reviews

[Joanna Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love loved this book when I was a kid! The only catch was that I could never find the rest of the trilogy so i always wondered what happened. So glad to have rediscovered George Zebrowski now.

Also, I ended up getting degrees in physics and astronomy so on the reread now, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that while his timing may be off and there may be a leap of faith or two required, generally the science in the book is pretty good. The psychology of teenagers and loss as well -- I'm impressed given that it was written more than 30 years ago.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was decent. It wasn't the best in the world, but the storyline is interesting and the physics "explained" in the book was a nice touch.

[Biondy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was bored halfway through the book and stopped the reading at the beginning of chapter 12. There were too many unnecessary things covered (the boring formal letter of acceptance, the history of translation literature), strange sex scene placement (it was too early,eventhough 3 months had passed since they first met), and did I mention how hard it was to spell the heroine's name? (Lissa Quintana-Green-Wolfe? I'm outta here).

The idea of the story was interesting, but there were too many things that made me put the book down and change it to another title.