It's hard to say exactly what the book is about. Characters are introduced, described in the most glowing terms, given love interests, and then dropped. The focus shifts from the first Earth expedition, to the second expedition, to the action on Kivlan, and back. Conflicts are introduced, then resolved effortlessly, usually because of the overwhelming good nature of almost everyone, on both Earth and Kivlan. In the end, the book reminded me oddly of another very bad novel, Alien Planet by Fletcher Pratt, a story which was first published in a pulp in the early 30s, then resurrected after Pratt's death and published as a book. That book is a ham-handedly satirical account of the journey of some Earthfolk to an alien planet -- the main point being a bitter contrast of the society on that other planet with that on Earth. In a broadly similar way, much of Second Contact deals with the rather curious utopian society of Kivlan. But the satire, if that was intended, has almost no bite. Moreover, the alien society as portrayed is terribly unconvincing, and terribly inconsistent. And the depiction of the next century society on Earth is also unconvincing, and has little extrapolated depth. So -- if this is a satire, it fails for lack of bite. Is it a serious examination of an alternate society? It fails for lack of rigor, and lack of consistency. Is it a fun romp? It fails for lack of plot, and lack of interesting characters. In a word -- it fails. Utterly.

The characters are uniformly cardboard, given fawning background stories, and unconvincing and emotionally flat love stories. (Most of which are back story anyway.) Naturally there is a love story between a Kivlanian and a human (though the cover portrait switches the sexes) -- it takes about a paragraph to develop. The plot is both discursive and implausible. The science is beyond absurd (though I will say that the book never makes a pretence of having real science -- and in the hands of, say, Robert Sheckley, the same level of science can work just fine). I thought I detected a few jokes -- some even made me grin, some grimace, and I'm sure I missed some others. I will say that the prose is serviceable -- nothing special, but not an encumbrance to the reading of the book. It was a waste of some three hours of my time.

I can only add a caveat -- some editor saw enough in this book to buy it. It is possible that I have simply and profoundly missed the point. But tread carefully.