Cover image of "The Simulacrum," a novel about SETI scientists and astronauts

Humanity’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been underway ever since the advent of radio early in the 1900s. But only in recent decades has the work taken on a systematic, broad-spectrum search involving a global network of SETI scientists and volunteers. And all so far to no avail. But what if the evidence for intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy has been there all along, buried on old astronomical photographic plates but unrecognized at the time? This is the conceit on which Australian science fiction author Peter Cawdron builds the twenty-seventh standalone novel in his monumental First Contact series, The Simulacrum. It’s a tension-filled, high-stakes thriller that poses challenging questions about SETI and the future of the human race.

An astronaut and an astrophysicist on converging paths

Astronaut Ryan McAllister and his younger sister, Dawn, a graduate student in astrophysics at Harvard, are central figures in Cawdron’s tale. Ryan is the commander of the back-up crew for NASA’s first mission to test the potential of mining on the asteroid 16 Psyche. After all, estimates of the value of the metal on the asteroid run as high as $100 quadrillion! Then the three members of the appointed crew die in a massive terrorist attack. And all of a sudden, Ryan will soon be on his way more than a hundred million miles into space.

Meanwhile, Dawn is struggling with a make-work assignment in a basement on the Harvard campus. A massive archive holds the photographic plates from decades of scans by Hawaii’s Keck Observatory. She is to manually shift the plates, one at a time, under a camera that will digitize the images. It’s a “shit assignment.” All she wants to do is study Przybylski’s Star, which is anomalous in many fascinating ways. It’s “an oddity, a misfit, a freak outlier, which doesn’t make for good science,” her academic adviser tells her. But the area he assigns her to photograph includes Przybylski’s Star. And as Dawn eyeballs one plate after another, she sees evidence of movement near the star. The only explanation is that some unknown body has entered the solar system. Could it possibly be an alien spaceship? It’s looking more and more as though it is.

Then, to Dawn’s astonishment, the movement she has detected on the photographic plates doesn’t show up on the digitized images. And the AI running the camera has no explanation.

The Simulacrum (First Contact #27) by Peter Cawdron (2024) pages ★★★★★

Artist's rendering of the asteroid 16 Psyche, the destination for NASA in this novel about SETI scientists and astronauts
The asteroid 16 Psyche, the immensely valuable, metal-rich planetoid in the asteroid belt where the climatic action in this novel takes place. Image: BBC Sky at Night Magazine

A “foreign adversary” enters the picture. Then another.

As Ryan trains for his upcoming mission to the asteroid belt, and Dawn puzzles over the mystery in the basement, a counterintelligence officer with the National Security Agency named Gabriel Lopez is working the Dark Web. His job “is the tedious task of distinguishing foreign adversaries impersonating US nationals from Americans who have become useful idiots for foreign governments.” By “foreign adversaries,” the NSA means Russia. And Gabriel has found an officer with the GRU engaged in a curious online chat about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, of all things. “Why,” he wonders, “do the Russians care about SETI?” Why are they masquerading as SETI scientists? And then he discovers that someone else in the chat is a Chinese intelligence officer! In a discussion about “salted stars. . . stars that shouldn’t exist.” Przybylski’s Star, in particular.

Mystery compounds mystery

Soon, the mysteries multiply. Dawn concludes that the AI managing the camera in the basement is wiping the images of those moving dots that show an interstellar object approaching. It’s the only possible explanation. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? How could an AI have a mind of its own? Artificial General Intelligence is still years away, isn’t it? And the anomalies at Przybylski’s Star, compounded by the seeming intentionality of those moving dots, suggests it’s an alien spaceship. But that’s impossible, too, isn’t it? And when Dawn resolves to revisit the original photographic plates to recheck her observations, an airplane falls from the sky, demolishing the building and killing scores of people.

Meanwhile, Gabriel’s got problems, too. That “Chinese intelligence officer” isn’t Chinese, after all. It isn’t even human. And Gabriel’s life is about to get a lot more complicated. Assuming he even survives.

But Ryan’s got the biggest challenge of all. Once he and his now slimmed down crew of one arrive in orbit around 16 Psyche, baffling new instructions turn up from Houston. And no sooner do they follow the orders—against Ryan’s better judgment—than the habitat goes dark. One hundred million miles from Earth. And things get worse from there. A lot worse.

About that asteroid

Here’s what BBC Sky at Night Magazine has to say about the asteroid at the center of the action in The Simulacrum: “Asteroid 16 Psyche, named after the Greek goddess of the soul, was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. It was only the 16th asteroid known, but we now know it’s among the 12 largest minor planets orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. With an average diameter of some 220 kilometres [137 miles], asteroid 16 Psyche contains about 1% the total mass of the entire asteroid belt. Moreover, spectroscopic studies and radar observations indicate its surface is very metal-rich.”

In fact, estimates of the value of the metal in 16 Psyche run as high as $100,000 quadrillion. Even if that’s an exaggeration by a factor of one million, that’s still a billion dollars worth a hundred thousand times over. So, there is unquestionably an incalculably large amount of metal there. However, without essays on-site, it’s impossible to know with certainty just which metals are present. We may know in 2029, when NASA’s 2023 mission to Psyche will arrive.

About the author

Photo of Peter Cawdron, author of this novel about SETI scientists and astronauts
Peter Cawdron. Image: Amazon

Peter Cawdron‘s First Contact book series, now twenty-seven novels strong, is topical rather than character-based. Each novel stands alone, offering new insight into the prospects of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Cawdron writes hard science fiction, which he defines as follows: “Hard science fiction is a misnomer as far as categories of literature go, as it sounds harsh and difficult to understand, but that is far from reality. Hard science fiction is simply plausible science fiction, fiction that is written in such a way as it conforms to the known laws of science, and that makes it more interesting, as there’s no magic wand the protagonist can wave to get out of trouble.”

Cawdron was born in New Zealand but has lived in Queensland, Australia for many years. He also spent a stretch living in the United States earlier in life.

My reviews of the novels in this series preceding this one are all listed at Peter Cawdron’s insightful First Contact book series.

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