Rollback

By Robert J. Sawyer

TOR, Tom Doherty Associates, New York, 2007. 317 pp. Hardcover $24.95

[Note: This review, unlike my usual work, contains spoilers.]

Dr. Sarah Halifax and her Husband of sixty years, Don were living their declining years in quiet contentment. But it was not to be. In 2009 Sarah had been the SETI researcher who decoded the first ever message from the stars. It was a questionnaire designed to evaluate the moral code of mankind. The senders wanted one thousand randomly selected survey answer sets to be transmitted back to them. Sarah and the SETI team fought for this and the random replies were sent save that Sarah inserted her own reply into the random set. Also at the last moment she modified one of her answers on the fly as the reply was sent. This turns out to be pivotal.

Now in 2048 a reply has been received and it is encrypted. They want Sarah to help. She laughs at them. “I am far too old for this,” she says but they promise her a Rollback, a genetic rejuvenation procedure which will make her young. It is a procedure costing Billions which only a very few can afford. A famous Billionaire and SETI proponent has promised to fund it. Sarah agrees on condition that Don gets the treatment too. They agree. The treatment works for Don but fails on her because of cancer treatment she received years before.

Now Sarah and Don face separation in ways that they never imagine. Don forms a relationship with a young woman, Lenore Darby, but still loves Sarah. Sarah works on the encrypted data, but her health is failing. She does not have long. There must be a clue. The aliens must want their message to be decrypted. Finally Sarah realizes the problem. The message is specifically directed at her and the attempts at decryption failed because of the last minute change she made in her answer which was not in the historical database. She now can decrypt.

What can the aliens be sending that they would send only to a being found to be of good moral character? She decodes the message and proceeds to blackmail the authorities so that the sacred trust the aliens have given her will be protected. Don agrees to be the guardian of the aliens to be raised from the gene data provided for aliens had sent their children electronically.

The story is presented from Don’s viewpoint with flashbacks to fill in needed background on the fly. The pivotal characters of Don, Sarah, Lenore Darby and Billionaire Cody McGavin are drawn as from life. Sarah could be any of several aging academic females of my acquaintance. Don could be any of several sound engineers I have known. Lenore, the enthusiastic graduate student is just real. Cody McGavin is a believable person with complex motivations. Sarah didn’t quite trust him, but he funded everything.

There was an interesting local reference slipped in. Two sound editing devices mentioned when Don was attempting to get his old job back at National Public Radio were a “Mennenga” and an EvoTerra.” The Dragon Page Lives!

The book is a good read. Recommended. – Gary Swaty