Abstract

If the universe is teeming with intelligent alien life, as many SF stories would have us believe, why has nobody come to visit us or even beamed us a radio message? David Brin's excellent science-fact article "Just How Dangerous is the Galaxy?" ANALOG, July 1985) was a very comprehensive survey of possible explanations for The Great Silence, "the strange and apparently longstanding absence of intelligent extraterrestrial life". By any standard this article is a contender for best-of-the-year science fact article in any SF magazine. If you haven't read it yet you should dig out your back issues and do so