He often cuts right to the quick with observational wit but also plumbs character emotion with deft poignancy. Learning how to be human, it seems, lets Haig craft a searingly funny story full of comic moments.

It’s this thought-provoking angle behind The Humans which allows it to find a winning formula, making full use of its outlandish premise. This involves getting used to his new life as ‘Andrew’ discovering more about the former Professor’s wife (with whom he falls in love) and his son (who helps him understand what fatherhood is about) further complicated by the countless other observations the alien makes about humans and all their fascinating quirks. Now occupying the body of the Professor, however, the alien must learn to fend for himself on a foreign planet. The alien race’s main concern with human beings is that they are violent and primitive in nature, so feel their advancement must be curtailed at all costs, starting with ending Andrew’s life. Sent to Earth to destroy evidence that the Professor has solved a mathematical problem known as the Riemann hypothesis, the Vonnadorians have concerns this innovation will advance mankind into a new age of space travel and deploy this alien in an act of subterfuge. Immediately charming readers with its high-concept ‘what if?’ scenario, Haig’s novel is a rollickingly whip-smart sci-fi novel about an alien from the planet Vonnadoria who takes over the body of Cambridge professor Andrew Martin in good old-fashioned Invasion of the Body Snatchers style. It’s always a joy when a book such as The Humans by Matt Haig lands like a UFO nestling themselves onto your bookshelf.

The humans book by matt haig