Ascending

Contact meets Mass Effect's First Contact War meets Arrival meets Ender's Game. Reading through this wholly original tale (at least in its particulars - the generic story is more of a trope of scifi), this reader absolutely got flashes of all of the above. And considering that I personally love all of the above, that was not unwelcome. Truly a strong tale of first sustained contact, exploration, and the difficulties in understanding and assimilating with a wholly alien world. Truly excellent work, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. Very much recommended.

OK I almost gave up on this book right away. I mean come on, really? We meet aliens for the first time and they look and (to a large extent) even act pretty much like us? Absolutely no way. Evolution just doesn't work like that! But then I remembered that I have happily enjoyed many years of Star Trek in which most of the aliens are very human like and some are even biologically compatible. So, I decided to suspend disbelief and gave Ascending another go.
Once I got past that little hurdle, the story worked fine for me. I quite enjoyed it.
Solid four stars.