Cover image of "The Artifact," a novel that offers an explanation for the Fermi Paradox

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The Great Silence. The Fermi Paradox. Two names for the same fact: no alien civilization has gotten in touch with us, much less showed their faces on Earth. That, despite the fact that the Milky Way galaxy consists of an uncountably large number of planets circling hundreds of billions of stars, and despite the likelihood that intelligent life has arisen a great many times somewhere among them. But why? What could possibly explain this? To gain purchase on these questions, Australian science fiction author Peter Cawdron offers perspective. In twenty-five standalone novels to date, Cawdron has explored the innumerable forms that First Contact might take. And in his latest effort, The Artifact, he offers a fresh and ingenious explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

A perilous journey through the Sahara

The novel opens in an exotic setting. Archaeologist Susan Taylor, a professor at the University of Wales, has slipped into southern Libya accompanied by an American mercenary bodyguard named James O’Connor. She’s searching for an ancient Egyptian tomb deep in the Libyan Sahara. And when at last the two arrive at the cave where two royal mummies are stored, she discovers an anomalous artifact.

Susan had been certain the tomb existed. One of her students had discovered it. But also there were rumors about “The Blazing Star of the Sahara” that merited investigation. “Crumbling hieroglyphics from Shaddah and Wadi Halfa along Lake Nubia on the Nile recorded a meteorite striking to the West out in the desert in roughly 5000 BC.” And now that meteorite lays mere inches from her hands. But it’s not a meteorite. It’s clearly an object fashioned by intelligence. An artifact.

The Artifact (First Contact #25) by Peter Cawdron (2023) 314 pages ★★★★★

Photo of the Milky Way galaxy, center of the speculation in this novel explaining the Fermi Paradox
In the unimaginably vast expanse of the Milky Way galaxy, our celestial home, hundreds of billions of stars illuminate an even larger number of planets. Surely, intelligent life must have arisen on many of them. But why have we on Earth never heard from them? Why the Great Silence? Image: Serge Brunner – NBC News

An alien artifact untouched for seven thousand years

The artifact is perfectly spherical. Silver, and as shiny as a mirror. With a glowing red band around its equator. And warm to the touch. Yet it’s lain ignored at the back of the cave for seven thousand years because, to the local people, it’s the work of Satan. It is, without question, of alien origin. And now, somehow, Taylor and O’Connor set out to carry the artifact more than a thousand miles back through the desert to a city where they can connect with scientists capable of studying it. And therein lies the tale. Nothing is easy along the way. Nothing. If anything can go wrong on their way back, it’s certain to happen.

We can be sure they will at length deliver the artifact to a team of astrophysicists with the tools to explore it. But we don’t have a clue what surprises are in store for us. Prepare yourself for an adventure—and an intriguing explanation for the Fermi Paradox—if you read this fascinating novel.

You’ll find biographical information about author Peter Cawdron, plus links to reviews of the whole series, at Peter Cawdron’s insightful First Contact book series. You might also care to see The five best First Contact novels.

For more good reading, check out:

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.