Learning The World : A novel of first contact

''Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.'' - School Library Journal

''Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.'' - THE TIMES

The great sunliner ''But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!'' is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate.

On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio, petroleum and powered flight, a young astronomer searching for distant planets detects an anomaly that he presumes must be a comet. His friend, a brilliant foreign physicist, calculates the orbit, only to discover an anomaly of his own.

The comet is slowing down ...

Reminding us that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine, LEARNING THE WORLD is a stunning novel of exploration, discovery and Mankind''s destiny amongst the stars.

Books by Ken MacLeod:

Fall Revolution
The Star Fraction
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road

Engines of Light
Cosmonaut Keep
Dark Light
Engine City

Corporation Wars Trilogy
Dissidence
Insurgence
Emergence

Novels
The Human Front
Newton''s Wake
Learning the World
The Execution Channel
The Restoration Game
Intrusion
Descent