Stop me if you’ve hear this before: mysterious giant metallic objects, robot/sculptures in this this case, suddenly appear all over the world and humanity at first freaks out, then adjusts. Upon further study, the unknowable objects, named Carls here, are revealed to have impossible properties, and thus maybe are not from Earth. Cue alien invasion debate/panic. A hero, April May in this case, who likely had something to do with the first contact believes that the Carls are not threatening, and works to figure out how to prove this and further figure out what they are and what they want. Said hero may or may not be a chosen one of some sort.
I swear I have seen this plot before. It reminds me a little of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: Space Odyssey, but more recently I know there’s been some comics, cartoon, anime, and/or manga that have done this before. I just can’t quite place it.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a quick mostly entertaining read, but there are some things that bothered me, beyond the nagging feeling I’ve heard this tale before. First, April gets irritating. What saves her from being unlikable is her supporting cast and the narrative voice of future/current April who comments on the mistakes and problems her past self, but current April in the story, is making. April’s friends who help her are the real starts of the story. There’s Maya her girlfriend/roommate, but they aren’t living together (it’s weird), Andy her best friend who stays by her side the whole time, Robin the personal assistant who becomes a friend/part of the team, and Miranda the scientist.
The other thing that bothered me a little was how preachy things got about the nature of the current culture of Insta-fame and the problems it brings to those who get drawn into it. April and Andy film a video in which April names Carl which may be the first recognized interaction, and April is a viral sensation overnight. Things proceed to spiral rather out of control, even with the help of Andy’s lawyer dad, agent Jennifer, and a supportive family. Naturally in opposition to April’s approach there arises a countermovement, the Defenders and their leader Peter Petrawicki, who are thinly veiled representative of the extremist corners of the web. Future/now April had a lot to say about how badly her self in the story was acting and how things were affecting her, like getting addicted to having massive amounts of attention bestowed upon her and the influence and power that came with it. I admit though, the one plot twist I did not see coming involved this side of the story, and how someone close but not too close to April was betraying her the whole time. The problem with this was that after the reveal, there was no further mention of this person, no follow up at all.
The Dream was probably the most interesting part: a contagious dream people would have in which there were all kinds of puzzles to solve that required specific knowledge of specific cultures, meaning that to solve them, a lot of very different people had to collaborate, mostly online.
The novel took me maybe about 4 hours to read, over two evenings. Like I said I mostly enjoyed it, but it really bugs me that I can’t think of where I know I’ve seen this before. I think knowing that made the “cliffhanger” ending not bother me as much as it might have, but I’m still bothered. This is the main reason I can’t quite get to 4 stars. It’s also not quite YA, not quite adult sci fi. A lesser annoyance but still there.
