I've read a few books by Daniel H. Wilson and had mixed feelings about them. Some of the stories in 'Guardian Angels & Other Monsters' worked for me while others didn't. The best seemed to tie to his novel 'The Clockwork Dynasty' novel and I enjoyed that much more. The good news for me is that this one shares commonalities with that one, mixing high technology with an age-old past, in both instances so age-old that memories of that past linger on only in mythology.

Ernest Cline described that book as "some fantastic hybrid of 'Highlander' and 'The Terminator'", but this one can't be boiled down that simply. Initially, it's a technothriller, with the lead seeming to be Dr. Gavin Clark, the director of the Emerging Weapons Technologies Group at the U.S. DOD, the Department of Defense. However, the Pattern, with a capital letter, that's being deciphered continually in an underground bunker by the Man Downstairs, feels acutely like something Philip K. Dick might conjure up. It predicts the future and it always gets it spot on. Right now, it's telling him that we're about to experience first contact.

That's where the neurospicy Mikayla Johnson comes in. She supports the Voyager project at NASA, which means she's in exactly the right place to notice that something just went past both of them, out there beyond the heliopause, something the size of a city block that's heading our way and can and does change direction. We don't get to know the Man Downstairs well enough to decide if we like him or not, but I liked Gavin and I liked Mikayla all the more. She's not a typical character for a book like this and she's endearingly comfortable of her differences, sporting augmented glasses, which she calls Nix, to tell her brain to remember to recognise people.

So Wilson has three threads to weave together that tie to what's being called the Incident. We're getting ready to be visited and a whole lot of people are preparing for it, whether they're excited or terrified. Meanwhile, there's a fourth thread over in Spiro, Oklahoma with Jim Hardgray trying to connect with his thirteen-year-old daughter Tawny, and, at least for a while, they're completely unaware that something of epochal importance is about to happen right there. We have a feeling that they will soon enough, not just because they're in the book but because they're Cherokee and the prologue, in the form of an open letter from Clark tells us that they're important.

Wilson is also Cherokee and it's good to see him embrace that within a novel. I can't remember if there was any Native content in the books I've read but, if there was, I didn't consider it notable enough to mention it in my reviews. Here, it's fundamental and it goes far beyond a single human connection that feels reminiscent of what I've read in books by writers like Stephen Graham Jones or Nick Medina or, indeed, in shows like 'Reservation Dogs', whose writer, Sterlin Harjo is quoted on the cover of 'Hole in the Sky'. It goes deep into mythology and the idea that the Cherokee are originally from the Pleiades.

If this seems clearly about first contact, I should emphasise that it absolutely is, but not in the way we're used to in science fiction novels. This isn't about a flying saucer landing in a prominent city and aliens walking out of it.

Partly that's because Spiro isn't close to the biggest city even in Oklahoma, which isn't well-known for big cities. What's there are the Caddo Mounds, built by the Caddoan Missippians of antiquity, the direct ancestors of the modern day Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. I know little about this culture so have no idea how deeply Wilson dives into it here but one of his themes is certainly continuity, connecting ancient peoples, mostly remembered through legends, and modern Native Americans, with modern problems.

Partly, though, it's because Clark gives us the impression early that this is a cosmic horror novel, a fair impression as it turns out. The word "alien" applies here through multiple definitions. Just as cosmic horror tends to suggest, there are things too big or too different for our primitive brains to comprehend. That's why it's important that there be prominent Native American characters to handle it through traditions handed down over generations.

So, sure, this is a first contact novel, one that gradually brings 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' to mind when each of the threads gradually points towards Spiro and many locations are whittled down to one. However, it's also a technothriller and a cosmic horror story. There are fundamental Native American perspectives that prove more important than any others, but Jim Hardgray has to share the spotlight not only with Tawny but with Gavin and Mikayla.

The former tackles cosmic horror like the characters in Brian Lumley's 'The Burrowers Beneath', bringing modern weaponry and the people to wield it. The latter, on the other hand, embraces it, especially after Nix goes sentient and, frankly, omniscient, like the Pattern. Oh, and when the fit hits the shan, as we knew it would eventually do in some form or other, there are scenes that are full on survival horror. I'd call this science fiction but it could easily be categorised as horror too.

I wonder what Wilson's background with horror is. Certainly the perspectives here ring true for a very good reason indeed, that he lived these varied backgrounds. No, he's not a neurodivergent woman, but he does have degrees in both machine learning and robotics, he did work as a threat forecaster for the U.S. Air Force and he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He clearly knows what he's talking about from a whole bunch of angles and that shines out in this book.

I also wonder how many of the odd things have roots in his experiences. I would guess that there's no Man Downstairs interpreting the poetry of an omniscient being for the American government, though it would be glorious if I'm wrong. However, there's a tasty scene with Lt. Marconi flying an experimental mission with AI-linked unmanned drones that feels entirely believable. Well, except for the metal ball that joins their formation at Mach 2 and then dives underwater, while keeping the same speed. Oh, and it remotely gives him a bruise. In the shape of the message on Voyager 1. It's a peach of a scene and it feels that way because its less unlikely moments are probably real.

I liked this a lot and I also like the trend that I'm liking each Daniel H. Wilson book I pick up a great deal more than its predecessor. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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