Factoring Humanity will undoubtedly satisfy Sawyer fans, as well as those looking for positive-future scenarios à la Carl Sagan's Contact. Rather than a galactic vision of war and peace, this novel is localized in the extreme: the plot revolves around Heather, a psychology professor struggling to decipher extraterrestrial messages, and her estranged husband, Kyle, on the brink of the biggest computer science breakthrough of all time. What makes Factoring Humanity work is that Sawyer deals with vast ideas such as alien contact, quantum mechanics, and the human overmind, but does so to a deeply personal effect.

Sawyer, like many writers of near-future science fiction, has an unfortunate tendency to be too rooted in today, to make so many casual references to our present that they draw undue attention to themselves, making it difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief. This fascination with 20th-century pop culture crowds the real story and real details into a corner and underscores an apparent lack of creativity in painting future landscapes. Otherwise, and forgiving Sawyer's breathtakingly myopic view of Native Canadians and rather bland prose, this is exciting, readable science fiction that will take you where no one has gone before--and you'll never forget the ending. --Jhana Bach


From Publishers Weekly
It's the personal implications of first contact that Sawyer (Illegal Alien) dramatizes in his disturbing and uneven new novel. Set in Canada, circa 2017, the story focuses on Heather and her computer-scientist husband, Kyle, who have separated following the suicide of their daughter Mary. When younger daughter Rebecca confronts her parents and accuses her father of molesting her, the family starts to shake apart. Redemption comes in the unlikely form of alien altruism: the messages from Alpha Centauri that psychologist Heather has studied for years prove to be blueprints for a "psychospace" device that enables her to see into the overmind of humanity, and to know anyone's deepest thoughts. In a flash, Kyle is exonerated, Rebecca apologizesAand her nasty, manipulative therapist is blamed for the false accusation. Although the novel ends with Heather greeting the first starship from Alpha Centauri, the bulk of the plot centers around the family's own mystery, and so the conclusion comes off as anti-climactic. Sawyer also includes too many digressions about the cultural significance of Seinfeld, Star Trek bloopers and quantum physics, delivering a tale that ultimately works more as a study of the human heart than as believable story of alien encounter. (June) FYI: Sawyer, whose The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula for Best Novel, was recently elected president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
When a ten-year-long barrage of encoded messages from Alpha Centauri suddenly stops, researcher Heather Davis accelerates her efforts to interpret the alien communication. Her attempts result in the construction of a miraculous device designed to transform humanity's perceptions of the universe?and of themselves. Sawyer's (Frameshift, LJ 5/15/97) latest novel explores the enigmatic and perplexing landscape of the human mind and the interplay of true, false, implanted, and collective memories that comprise the phenomenon of consciousness. Recommended for large sf collections.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Math professor Heather Davis, in Toronto, tries to decipher the famous messages that have been arriving for years from Alpha Centauri. At last, she realizes that they describe a particular geometic shape that is to be built of particular, positively charged materials. Within this structure, once built, she finds that she can journey, like Jung's overself, through the consciousness of all humanity, in which individual selves lodge as if in the cells of a beehive. Heather's discovery becomes personally important when her grown daughter accuses her estranged husband, Kyle, of sexually abusing her when she was a child. Heather explores Kyle's mind and finds him innocent; her daughter has been duped into false memories by an illicit therapist. Sawyer gets high marks for working out extraordinary concepts in ordinary human terms, but his plot is too dependent on coincidence and his speculations are on the New Age side. Heather's machine is a thing of great beauty, though, and her trip through our collective racial consciousness is an amazing cruise. John Mort


From Kirkus Reviews
Messages-from-space yarn from the versatile author of Illegal Aliens (1997), etc. By 2017, messages from Alpha Centauri A have been arriving at Earth for ten years, but only the first few have been deciphered. Univ. of Toronto psychologist and message decipherer Heather Davis is separated from husband Kyle Graves, a leading quantum computer researcher; but then their daughter Becky accuses Kyle of abusing her. At first incredulous, Heather soon entertains horrid doubts. Poor Kyle, meanwhile, knows he's innocent--but, agonizingly, wonders whether he's repressing memories of abusing Becky (their other daughter, Mary, inexplicably committed suicide). Then the messages from space stop. Even though Kyle's attempt to demonstrate a working quantum computer fails, two mysterious groupsone offering megabucks and another message to decode, the other also offering megabucks while making veiled threatswant his work suppressed. He rejects both. Heather realizes that the Centauran messages, correctly arranged, form an unfolded four-dimensional hypercube. She builds a model that incorporates the substances specified in the previously decoded messages, climbs inside--and the thing folds her up into the fourth dimension! Not only that, but she's able to plug into humanity's collective unconscious, or overmind. Kyle, she learns, is indeed innocent, and Beckys the victim of an overzealous and suggestive therapist. Moreover, the Centaurans have sent a ship to make contact. Best of all, humanity's overmind meets the Centauran overmind with astonishing consequences. An intelligent and absorbing double-stranded narrative, generally well paced, accelerates to hyperspeed in the last few pages. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously.

When Heather achieves a breakthrough, the message reveals a startling new technology that rips the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage of human evolution. In concert with Kyle's discoveries of the nature of consciousness, the key to limitless exploration---or the end of the human race---appears close at hand.

Sawyer has created a gripping thriller, a pulse-pounding tour of the farthest reaches of technology.



About the Author
Robert J. Sawyer, who has been nominated six times for the Hugo Award, lives just outside of Toronto

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In 2007, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously. When Heather achieves a breakthrough, the message reveals a startling new technology that rips the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage of human evolution. In concert with Kyle's discoveries of the nature of consciousness, the key to limitless exploration - or the end of the human race - appears close at hand.

FROM THE CRITICS

Rocky Mountain News

Robert J. Sawyer is fast becoming one of the most important names in science fiction.

San Diego Union-Tribune

The science here, both in theory and realization, is more than competent, as is Sawyer's drawing of the internal lives of his characters.

Publishers Weekly

It's the personal implications of first contact that Sawyer (Illegal Alien) dramatizes in his disturbing and uneven new novel. Set in Canada, circa 2017, the story focuses on Heather and her computer-scientist husband, Kyle, who have separated following the suicide of their daughter Mary. When younger daughter Rebecca confronts her parents and accuses her father of molesting her, the family starts to shake apart. Redemption comes in the unlikely form of alien altruism: the messages from Alpha Centauri that psychologist Heather has studied for years prove to be blueprints for a "psychospace" device that enables her to see into the overmind of humanity, and to know anyone's deepest thoughts. In a flash, Kyle is exonerated, Rebecca apologizesand her nasty, manipulative therapist is blamed for the false accusation. Although the novel ends with Heather greeting the first starship from Alpha Centauri, the bulk of the plot centers around the family's own mystery, and so the conclusion comes off as anti-climactic. Sawyer also includes too many digressions about the cultural significance of Seinfeld, Star Trek bloopers and quantum physics, delivering a tale that ultimately works more as a study of the human heart than as believable story of alien encounter. (June) FYI: Sawyer, whose The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula for Best Novel, was recently elected president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Library Journal

When a ten-year-long barrage of encoded messages from Alpha Centauri suddenly stops, researcher Heather Davis accelerates her efforts to interpret the alien communication. Her attempts result in the construction of a miraculous device designed to transform humanity's perceptions of the universe--and of themselves. Sawyer's (Frameshift) latest novel explores the enigmatic and perplexing landscape of the human mind and the interplay of true, false, implanted, and collective memories that comprise the phenomenon of consciousness.

Chronicle Science Fiction