A new take on a familiar theme, GIFT FROM THE STARS recounts what happens when a signal is received from deep space. From the same premise that served as the starting point for Carl Sagan's Contact, Gunn develops a story very different from those that have gone before him.

The story of GIFT FROM THE STARS is broken into several distinct segments. It begins with the discovery by Adrian Mast of plans for a space ship in the back of the a UFO conspiracy book. To his trained eye, the plans appear genuine and intrigued by the possibilities, he sets off to find out where the plans came from. Latter segments deal with the implications of the technology revealed by the plans, the construction of the spacecraft and the journey to meet the beings that sent the plans.

Gunn takes the story in some very interesting & novel directions, but those directions occasionally don't make sense. When it's convenient for the story, governments and their agents are short sighted, paranoid villains... or generous visionaries when that is what is needed to advance the story. And like any number of SF authors before him, Gunn can't figure out how to end the story so he resorts to pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo. Despite these flaws - and the general shortness of the book - this is still a very interesting work. It's a fascinating exploration of a classic "what if" scenario, and has some brilliant turns in it. The section where the space travelers get stuck in a wormhole where time does not flow properly is a truly inspired piece of writing.