Yesterday’s Kin

Conspiracy theorists have many ideas explaining why aliens should spend their treasure in coming all the way from there to here. Cynicism prevails. Most aliens, the skeptics allege, would only invest if there was something in it for them. In the more extreme cases, that would be world conquest and the extermination of the human race—our real estate is just what they need. In less severe cases, Earth becomes a farm with us the food animals.

So here comes Yesterday’s Kin. In a way, the title rather gives away who the visitors are, but the point of the book is not the “who”, it’s the “why”. They say they come in peace. The implication is they mean us no harm. Then comes the bad news. Earth is about to pass through a cloud in space which contains a virus likely to wipe out all life. They want Earth’s top scientists to start working on a cure. There’s very little time left if we want to save the Earth. . .

The basic plot idea is well put together and, in a relatively short novel, we get through to the answers with minimum delay. This makes the book slightly functional rather than engrossing, but still very readable.