The Lure by Bill Napier (The Lure - Bill Napier)

Member Name: soundsexciting

Product:	The Lure - Bill Napier
Date:	04/01/06 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a first rate science thriller

Disadvantages: none

One of the biggest and most interesting paradoxes in Astronomy is the issue about whether or not we are alone in the Universe. There are two main theories used to advance both sides of the argument.

The argument against;
The Galaxy is billions of years old. If alien civilisations are 'out there' then given the age of the galaxy there has been more than enough time for them to have colonised the galaxy and for them to have reached our small planet. However we don't see any signs of them here (discounting UFO's) nor do we see any sign of them anywhere else in the form of signals from far away stars. Therefore we must be alone in the galaxy.

The argument for;
The Galaxy is huge. It is teeming with stars and these stars must have planets orbiting them. Even using our primitive technology we can detect the larger planets orbiting stars many light years away. As soon as conditions were suitable on Earth, life developed. Given the selective advantages of a central nervous system all the way to the development of a brain, intelligent life must exist everywhere in the Universe. Therefore the Universe is teeming with intelligent life.

In the Lure, Bill Napier explores both sides of this paradox.

In Eastern Europe a joint British/Russian scientific research team has fitted an underground lake with the latest technology capable of detecting subatomic particles from way beyond Earth. Their objective; to solve the 'dark matter' problem. I'm not going to go too much into the dark matter problem but basically the 'weights' of galaxies can be measured. When one does that, one finds that the galaxies all weigh more than they should based on their relative luminosities. Therefore either the laws of physics are wrong or there must be missing matter that has yet to be discovered. The experiment in the underground lake is designed to detect this missing matter.

Unfortunately the scientists get more than they bargained for. Having detected nothing for years they suddenly find themselves bombarded with millions of unknown particles that trigger their thousands of detectors. The detectors are arranged in a lattice framework and they notice that rather than being random, there seems to be a hidden order to the stream of particles. Unable to determine the nature of this pattern they enlist the help of a post-graduate researcher Dr Tom Petrie who specialises in pattern recognition and deciphering codes. The tantalising hint of intelligence behind the pattern is confirmed by Dr Petrie and it slowly becomes apparent that they have been contacted by an advanced alien intelligence.

The question then becomes one that concerns the motives of this intelligence. Why would a clearly advanced intelligence want to communicate with us.

'How would you communicate with a frog?'
'I don't know. Why would I want to?'
'Exactly….'

What would drive an alien intelligence to communicate with us?

Are they altruistic and simply want to help advance other races that are behind them technologically?

Or are they malevolent and they've sent out a signal as a 'lure' in the hopes that an inferior race would answer the signal and unwittingly reveal themselves.

In short, would the aliens possess a moral code and if so then what kind of code would it be?

As the scientists grapple with these questions, they find themselves in conflict with government policy. Neither the British nor Russian governments want news of their discovery to be made public. Not only are they concerned that the signal may be a lure, but they are also concerned about what effect the advanced technological information contained within the signal might have on a society that isn't ready for it. Meanwhile the American government realises that it needs to remain in the loop and that it cannot let Britain and Russia unilaterally decide on a course of action that could have such wide ranging ramifications and begins to take steps to obtain the information held within the signal or at the very least prevent Britain and Russia from having a monopoly on it.

The Lure is an excellent novel written by an author who knows his stuff. It explores current scientific debate by providing well reasoned arguments for not only the questions of whether or not there is intelligent life out there but also what form of moral code that intelligence may possess.

The characters within the book are rather clichéd. From the vodka drinking Russian to the blonde Scandinavian female but if you ignore that then the book is highly enjoyable. The pace of the book starts off slowly and steadily increases as it gets to the climax and as such will have the reader turning page after page in order to get to the end. Whilst the scientific basis for the book is explained gently to the reader by having the characters that form the initial research team explain in layman's terms the theories to Dr Tom Petrie it would still help the reader if they were broadly familiar with some of the basic scientific principles.

About Bill Napier (taken from The Lure)
Bill Napier is a Scottish astronomer at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland and an honorary professor at the Institute for Astrobiology of Cardiff University. He is interested in the relationship between life and the Universe and is a leading authority of the celestial hazard issue.

Summary: a first rate science thriller