Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer
The novel takes place in 'present day' with the arrival of aliens. Unlike many alien novels and movies, there isn't a great war. The aliens already learned English (or whatever language they need) and have come to speak with specialists in many academic fields. The novel centres around Thomas Jericho a paleontologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The alien, named Hollus, is a large spider like creature that has come to discuss Earth's past in hopes of further understanding God and over specific events occurring throughout the universe. This of course leads to many discussions about belief, religion and science.
The book is mostly a "talking" book. Hollus the alien, believes that the existence of God is obvious by everything that has happened throughout history that made it possible for life to exist. Jericho has his doubts, especially since he is currently dying from cancer. They have interesting theories. One such example is water. Water when it freezes, it freezes from the top down, not the bottom up, if this were not so life could never exist. Water actually has seven properties that are unique in the chemical world. Hollus argues that the chance of this is almost nil, and therefore an indication of intelligent design.
Overall I enjoyed the novel thoroughly, the prose is simply written and the story flows quite naturally and quickly despite the overall lack of "action". The deeper questions are intriguing and make you think, I thought about this book long after I had finished it.
Like most science fiction, the major flaw is the ending. Where the book spends most of its time in philosophical debate, the ending is quite fantastical, and perhaps a little unbelievable (I understand that with Sci-fi there is a certain level of suspension of disbelief) but the ending left me a little disappointed. However I highly recommend this book.
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