Decoding The Rosetta Man

Claire McCague’s The Rosetta Man is so lovable I’m not sure I can give it a fair review. There are literary missteps I could mark off like potholes in the spring, but it would be more to show you I’m not a pushover, than to inform you about your chances of enjoying this ride. And your chances are good.

The central character, Estlin Hume, is a plausible, 21^st century, and highly reluctant, Dr. Doolittle. The opening scene, with the squirrels, is enough to propel me into the novel. Hume becomes embroiled in a first-contact, political thriller – that never loses its sense of humor. It is one of the reasons the book is so fun to read.

Reasons 2: Aliens. Creatures from another planet that are really, truly alien. They don’t look like us, communicate like us, or think like us. They are so fascinating and imaginative, you can read the book for them alone.

But you wouldn’t. Clair’s fictionalized science is deep but approachable, spanning physics, biology and psychology. Her mechanisms for interstellar travel and seemingly telepathic communication are particularly delightful.

The book has perhaps too many characters, but that’s me wanting to spend all my time with Hume and the aliens. Which I hope to do in the next book, which I’m thinking reviews like this one will help move along.

The Misspellers. Second Edition.

Here is the new cover for the second edition of The Misspellers. It's been 14 years since the first one. Books create a weird time anomaly in my memory, as in this book feels like it came out last year and a life-time ago.

The new cover is by Linda Shenk, who has an amazing Etsy shop here.  Her art is cool, fluid and mysterious and I hope some of it rubs off on my book.

The cover also fits with the other two in the series, The Wrong Channel and the soon to be released, The Misremembered.

There is also a new Misspellers Web site, which is pretty, again thanks to Linda.