They're Here! They're Here! [Review: Arrival]

Monolithic alien spaceships appear in twelve seemingly random locations across Earth's continents. The military call on linguistics professor Louise (Amy Adams) for an opinion, and she quickly talks her way onto the contact team and finds herself leading the contact mission alongside physicist Ian (Jeremy Renner).

What follows is a beautifully low-key first contact movie with echoes of both Contact and Interstellar, as the team races against time to decode the aliens' language before the fragile pax between involved nations breaks down. Adams stands out with a melancholy and human performance as a scientist plagued by memories of loss, and this is very much her movie - Renner is here in a supporting role although there's some good chemistry between the two.



Overall this is a well-scripted movie, and there's lots to enjoy - not least the alien language which is realised in depth, and the tension that builds between nations as teams at different sites become suspicious of each other.

There are however a couple of minor shark-jumps. Louise's first successful communication with the aliens is based on such a simple idea, I had trouble believing this hadn't been tried already. Later, despite being set in a military camp with tight security, one soldier manages to connect to a fundamentalist website on his laptop without triggering any alarms. These do not spoil the movie which stands on its performances and eerie atmospherics. The big twist, which I won't reveal here, is a narrative gamble with internal logic that in my opinion just about holds together. I liked it but it may well divide viewers.

The theme of interpreting alien languages is a science fiction favourite, although it can also get swept under the metaphorical carpet (yes, Babel fish, I'm talking to you) and it's a potential pitfall if and when we make contact with aliens in the real world. Of the many sci-fi novels that take up this theme I particularly enjoyed Jennifer Foehner Wells' Fluency, which features a scientist hero not unlike Amy Adams' character in Arrival, and Embassytown by China Mieville, a particularly bizarre tale of aliens who recruit humans to become metaphors in their language.

Sci-Fi Lies and Butterflies [Review: The Metalmark Contract]

An alien parks his spacecraft in orbit and makes contact with humanity. His arrival creates tension amongst the politicians and divides nations and religions, while scientists try to make sense of his message and his seemingly generous offer.

Year after year, sci-fi novels and films keep on re-writing this story of our first contact with an intelligent alien. Do they declare outright war, as in War Of The Worlds or Independence Day, or try to conquer us by stealth, as in The Tripods, V or Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers? Might benign aliens make contact in order to share knowledge or guidance, like Klaatu and Gort, or the broadcasting intelligence in Contact? Or perhaps they’d rather wait mysteriously for us to come to them, as in 2001 or Rendezvous With Rama.

What’s clever about the cagey Metalmark is that he could be any of the above. When he makes first contact, he appears in the guise of a slick, human-like salesman offering a win-win trade of tech for resources: a little of your Solar System, and in return the stars. He’s also a pacifist and an enthusiastic student of human culture, particularly that of the US – but he’s smarter than he appears, and he’s holding back one or two key pieces of information, not least his own, alien nature. Taking the name of an endangered butterfly is a literal and also metaphorical clue to his identity, as well as a cryptic message intended for one of the characters.

The Metalmark Contract is written by NASA astrophysicist David Batchelor and is the first in a planned series. The plot takes in national and international politics but focuses on mild-mannered scientist Dr. Steve Simmons: I’m glad about this because Simmons is a good, believable hero, and much of the science feels plausible too. Other plot strands are less strong: I’m not sure I’m quite as convinced by Simmons’ possible love interest, translator Ilana Lindler, nor by the many politicians who also figure. To be fair, it’s hard to write convincingly about the corridors of power – The West Wing and The Thick Of It are very rare examples.

Another subplot concerns terrorism – when Metalmark appears to endorse a Christian leader there is a backlash led by a fundamentalist imam. I’ve got no objection to generic Islamist terrorist bad guys, but I don’t buy the entire Arabic world uniting behind this sort of leader. It’s much more likely that huge divisions would open up between different states. There are hints that this conflict might actually be engineered by Metalmark, which would make more sense.

I think the most enjoyable aspect of this novel is that there really is a puzzle to be solved, and a race against time to solve it. There’s a skillful drip-feed of clues about Metalmark’s body, or what he might want with Mercury and Triton, and even at the end of the book only a little of the solution is revealed, so there are plenty of unanswered questions to drive the sequel.


Available as paperback or e-book.