"Rollback tells the story of SETI researcher Sarah Halifax, and her husband Don. The novel opens in 2047 when they’re both 87 years old. Almost forty years earlier, Sarah had decoded the first ever radio transmission received from aliens, and now, as Sarah and Don are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, word comes in that another message has been received from the aliens. A wealthy industrialist who is funding SETI at this point calls Sarah, telling her she’s the key to decoding the new message. Sarah says no, she’s too old, and, besides, they need someone who can stick around for the next reply, decades later, and her life is almost over.
Not necessarily, says the industrialist. He offers Sarah a “rollback” – an experimental, and hugely expensive, new procedure that can rejuvenate a person; it could make Sarah physically 25 again. Sarah says she won’t do it without her husband. The industrialist agrees – and the process works for Don, who ends up physically in his twenties again, but it fails for Sarah, leaving her in her eighties. The novel deals with the impact of this on their marriage while Sarah races to try to decode the alien message in the small amount of time she has left."
http://ficlets.com/blog/entry/author_in ... t_j_sawyer
