Ashley's Reviews > Singer Distance

I said in a status update while reading Singer Distance that it was giving me Contact vibes, and that's true. The homespun science and grungy academic feel of the book, along with a group of characters working towards contacting aliens does give me the same feelings I get watching that movie (I have the book and I really need to finally read it!), but Singer Distance also has its own unique feel.

This is an alternate history where back in the late 1800s, scientists spotted a message in Mars and began communicating back, with Mars setting mathematical problems for humans to solve, presumably as tests of intelligence, and the scientific community makes it all the way to the 1930s until they are completely stumped.

Set in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, our main character is Rick, one of the group of graduate students who reached out to the Martians and solved their latest challenge, one that had been puzzling the top mathematical minds for over three decades. His girlfriend, Crystal Singer (a mathematics prodigy and genius) is the one that did the actual solving, and their success catapults all of them to instant global fame, something Crystal doesn't handle well. Since this is literary science fiction, it's harder to put into words the tone of the book and the themes its tackling, but the emphasis here isn't one your usual science fiction book would take. Though the aliens are a motivating presence in the book, most of the science and math that's present feels very grounded and real, even when it starts taking a turn to the speculative.

This was a short read in terms of page length, and in reading time. I found it really compelling and hard to put down. I would absolutely love to see it as a movie, and I hope more people read it, as right now the number of ratings on Goodreads is pretty low.