Qualiens: The Prolusion 1, Michael Brown, Xlibris Corporation, 2001
The first of the three connected novellas in this book is about Marland, living in present-day Tucson, Arizona. He is attempting to contact extraterrestrials using a homebrew SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project.
A native of Indiana, he grew up in a very dysfunctional home. A gunshot wound to the head in his youth left him with acalculia, or a problem with numbers. He moved out West, and made it his mission to find aliens. The aliens, called the Qua, come to him through his computer. Marland asks all sorts of questions about science, philosophy, etc.
The second novella is about Leah, living in the same town in Indiana. Leah wants to have a baby very, very much. Problem 1: Leah, a struggling writer, is also a lesbian. Problem 2: Bekke, her lover, took off one day with several major appliances. Leah goes to the Biology Department of the local college, where her father was a professor, under the guise of working on a science fiction story, to ask about reproduction alternatives. She also has a relationship with a male midget involved in a very strange performance of Shakespeare.
The third story is about Connie, a school bus driver, who moved from Indiana to the tourist part of South Carolina with her boyfriend, who then abandoned her. She and her friends, Doris and Stephanie, start to get messages from an unknown source through those CD-ROMs that advertise so many free hours on the Internet. The messages are in the serial numbers that have to be entered in the computer when signing up.
This one is really good. There is a considerable amount of weirdness in it, so it isn't for everyone. These are fine stories of love, and relationships and contemporary life. I am looking forward to the sequel.
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