Spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Has anyone read this? I just finished it last night. Had picked up a galley copy at a local book cafe and thought it looked fascinating. It pulled me in, but I had several burning questions from early on that were not not only never answered, but never acknowledged. It made me feel like the author didn't have a firm grasp on human psychology, which is bizarre given how well-respected Faber is and how good his characters are.

My biggest problem was how unbelievably incurious Peter is. He vaguely asks for more information (about USIC, about Oasis, about the aliens) a few times, but never once pushes for it. Once he meets the Oasans, he takes their fanatic worship at face value, never questioning why they're so enraptured by Jesus or actually anything at all about their society. He makes a few half-hearted attempts to ask if they're male or female, totally ignoring the ridiculous assumption that aliens would have a typical human gender binary. He never once asks about their biology--if he had, the twist about Oasans not healing wouldn't have been a surprise, and he could have gotten valuable information for USIC. He only starts trying to learn their language 3/4 of the way through the book, for god's sake!

A lot of this can be explained by the fact that he was chosen by USIC at all. (Which, come on, could you write a more boring twist than "everyone here was hired because they're boring"?) But I feel there was a basic human element lacking in all the human characters, except Bea and Grainger.

I'm kind of ranting I guess. Typing about this made me realize how frustrated I actually am at this book. I absolutely love the idea of a corporation quietly starting a colony because they believe Earth is collapsing, but I think it was poorly-executed.

My final critique probably isn't valid, as it's kind of the point of the book. But Faber managed to write a story about exploration, discovery, destruction and faith that contains almost no emotion at all, besides Bea's messages beamed from Earth and Grainger's refreshingly human outbursts. No catharsis, no answers, no tying together of threads.

Honestly, before writing this I thought I'd liked this book. Now I'm not so sure.

Thoughts?