Bright Messengers, by Gentry Lee

This is another beautiful novel set in the universe laid out in the Rama series which Gentry Lee co-wrote with Arthur C. Clarke. And also another novel about contact between humans and aliens... Maybe you don't really need to have read the Rama series to enjoy this book, but it would probably help you place it in the right context.

The story is set on Earth after the "Great Chaos", a major economic depression that puts the world in a state of misery. In the midst of the turmoil a simple man with simple ideas lays down what he thinks is the path to a better life of equality and love for everybody. In the process he is canonized becoming St. Michael of Siena, not exactly a character in the story, albeit strong presence.

Sister Beatrice, a Michealite pristess that will tell you all you may want to know about St. Michael, has "a vision of angels". The strange phenomenon is observed by another member of her religious order and yet another time in a different country with a Johann, a man to who the idea of God is as alien as the creatures Beatrice calls 'angels'. All these characters end up meeting in Mars, where they become members of the human colony on that planet, where the strange "angels" show up once more. Maybe much more than "once more"; read the book.

This turns into a journey as exciting as in Rama that no Clarke fan should miss. It's also good to see that Lee is carrying the torch of such good science fiction. The warning I have for you is that although you'll read in the last page of the paperback edition that the sequel Double Full Moon is scheduled to come out in 1996, it did not. I hope Mr. Lee is busy working hard, because all of us who read this book are waiting for the sequel at the egde of the cliff where he left us.

What I found particularly interesting in this book was the fact that it shed a light on the question of what was Lee's collaboration in the Rama project. His input in storyline, character development, writing style and rhythm must have been quite large, because you'll find the same qualities of Rama in the same quantities in his first solo effort. Beware that the book ends in a cliffhanger that continues into a sequel.