The Coming

Haldeman, Joe, The Coming. New York: Ace, 2000. For a translation, reprints and reissues, and reviews, see Internet Speculative Fiction Database, as of November 2023, here.[1] There is a well-done Audible audiobook, for which see here.[2]

Premised on "First Contact" with a highly advanced alien species that sends Earth the message, in English, "We're coming."

In his review of the novel, Rick Horton finds the world of 2054 (mostly around Gainesville, Florida), "interesting and well-imagined. The future tech includes highly computerized homes" — in the jargon of the 2020s, "smart homes" — "holographic conference calls and [...] virtual porn."[3] (For smart homes as containment within protective or threatening spaces, see "Zits: Smart House" and DEMON SEED (film) and novel; for the classic smart house story — but no humans involved — see "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Rich Erlich was particularly impressed early in the novel with the television news equipment: far less radical than that of The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe and its siblings and descendants, but more plausible — dedicated (our term), low-intelligence AI robots that obey (generally) voice commands. Haldeman credits the SETI message motif to James Gunn's The Listeners;[4] and Horton cites Haldeman to that effect, and adds the "brilliant and underrated novel by John Kessel, Good News From Outer Space, briefly discussed here.[5]

The virtual pornography "feelies" go back at least to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), but this novel gives — in good taste — details of production, where we can see (so to speak) the superimposition of the cybernetic/VR paraphernalia upon the sexual (organs), to be perceived eventually by an audience through neural-stimulating headsets. Cf. and contrast BRAINSTORM and (strongly contrast) the asexual sagas in A. C. Clarke's The City and the Stars.

That "interesting and well-imagined world" includes high-tech musical composition, weapons and police equipment both very definitely from our time (if with ingenious tweaking) and futuristic.

RDE, finishing, 2Jan21, 6Nov23, 10Nov23