4,5/5. I want to read more first contact novel this year and when you look for some top 10 on the internet, this one is always high on the list so I decide to have a look. What a book! What a weird book! But what a book! This is mostly a very slow story so if you like fast pace action science-fiction, you should stay away, no space ship battle here. It’s a book that mixed philosophy, anthropology, science-fiction and a lot of religion/spirituality. It makes you think about the cultural difference, the way society work, the order in the universe vs a big chaos and so much more. The ending is pretty disturbing but it really finished the book by putting all the pieces together and we finally understand all that’s happen. Like I said, a slow pace book/story, but if you like deep thinking, strong storyline and something quite original even more if you consider it was written around 1996) then you should really look into this one. My only minus would be about some science elements that don’t always made a lot of sense, but hey, that’s science-FICTION so that’s no big deal!