March 25, 2024
The fields of math, linguistics, and music come together to save humanity in this intricately plotted and heavily academic sci-fi experiment from Anderson (The Trail). In 2489, Juanita Popov, chair of the World Council of Mathematicians (WCM), oversees an urgent project to use time travel technology to Lift history’s mathematical, scientific, and musical geniuses into the present to cure humanity’s “ ‘virus’—the human propensity to covet, take, and kill” by creating a new universal language. The world is on the brink of World War IV, and humankind’s extinction is projected within 15 months. Only nine people can be Lifted from their timelines at a time, so WCM institutes a continual rotation of fresh Liftees from around the world, including Bach, Curie, Einstein, Euclid, Liu Hui, Muhammed al-Khowarizmi, and Srinivasa Ramanujan. These great minds are tasked with developing a universal language that combines the “one universal truth,” mathematics, with linguistics and music. If they fail, there’s Plan B—shipping humans off-world. But this backup plan is complicated when SETI, a nonprofit devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, discovers signals from numerous alien intelligences. How will humanity react, and will its new language be useful in communicating with the extraterrestrials? While the details may go over some readers’ heads, there are fascinating ideas at play here and the optimism in the face of impending apocalypse is inspiring. Hard sci-fi fans seeking hope for the future will be pleased.