Review: Naimera: Sapient Quest by Michael Ganzberger

A gritty work of sci-fi that feels ripped from a near-future headline, Naimera: Sapient Quest by Michael Ganzberger is the thrilling second piece of his biosynthetic space saga. After proving their incredible capabilities in bringing down the world’s most dangerous man, the NAIMERA program is enlisted once more for a task that just might end up saving the species.

On Earth, reports of mirage-like flying saucers and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena with impossible abilities have become harder to hide or explain away, heating up an already dangerous arms race for the recovery of this presumed alien tech. Under the guise of a climate study, a group of pseudo-sentient AI drones and a pacifistic genius are sent out to find the aliens hidden somewhere on the West Coast, make first contact, and potentially give the United States a cosmic leap forward in their scientific capabilities and geopolitical dominance.

However, ten thousand lightyears away, a race of immortal and synthetic aliens fleeing a doomed star system have set their sights on a true “gem of the universe,” but the bipeds that currently inhabit it are violent and self-destructive, unaware of the luck and rarity of their existence. It is the perfect world for the cold and calculating Ocets in their colonizing starship, if only the semi-intelligent life forms could somehow be eliminated by their scouts by the time they arrived.

Tapping into the surge of fascination with UFOs following recent revelations by the US military, this is the kind of sci-fi that effortlessly captures the contemporary imagination. The timeliness of the plot, existing as it does within a familiar geopolitical puzzle of alliances and tensions, makes it even easier for readers to fully immerse in the story. The hard sci-fi elements only get stronger and stranger as the momentum builds, and it becomes clear that first contact isn’t going to be gentle.

The world-building here deserves particular praise, particularly the depth and creativity of the Ocets; Ganzberger envisions what humanoid evolution and ingenuity could achieve in another million years, and it’s brain-bendingly cool. The design, functionality, and entertaining personalities of the NAIMERAs, particularly Buttons, add some lightness and a bit of wonder to the story, while other future-tech elements, such as the memory-saving HOUDINI program, are thrillingly inventive. Complete memory transfers into living organisms is a perennial fascination in the genre, and Ganzberger plays with the idea from multiple angles. Questions of mortality, sentience, free will, and the mind’s desire to persist are teased out and philosophically dissected, in between the gripping action sequences and surprising twists.

On a narrative level, the character relationships are richly designed and believable, with some continuing from the previous book, and always driven by meaningful and authentic dialogue. There are some sections of exposition that feel choppy and more declarative than others, as though the author was rushing through an info dump, rather than working ideas seamlessly into the story. A final editing pass could smooth the final rough edges where the quality of prose slips, or where a reader’s attention is more likely to wander.

Overall, this high-stakes alien tech drama is bursting with creativity and suspense, boasting a strong storyline that should appeal to readers of any genre.