The Invitation by Michael Mckinney

"Mckinney offers a novel that mixes the science fiction of a first contact encounter with the political intrigue of a thriller." Kirkus Review June 2021

When the President of the United States stands before thousands in Miami, Florida welcoming the world to the start of the Summer Olympic games, the global event is watched by uncounted millions. No one could've foreseen the astonishingly dramatic events that will play out before spectators and be televised throughout the world. Instead of the expected games, the high-speed approach of an object that eclipses the moon and soon lands less than a hundred feet from where the president is standing leaves those on the ground and television viewers around the world collectively spellbound. Hundreds of millions watch as an alien creature who calls himself a "Linesian" appears and after projecting an enormous image across the night sky visible to the entire western hemisphere, he takes all of humanity on a guided visual tour of its own future through the next ten thousand years and beyond. As this is happening, the President is strangely detached from the incredible events taking place before him, as if he had prior knowledge of it all. He doesn't know that he's being secretly investigated by members of his own government. A surreptitiously obtained brain scan revealing a tiny microchip embedded into his brain convince government officials that he's engaged in espionage for a foreign power. The intrigue, conspiracy, and murder that follows happen within a span of thirty-two hours, the most eventful thirty-two hours in recorded human history.
As I want the reader to get the book they think they’re buying I add this disclaimer for clarification. This book contains no “over the top” planet ripping mayhem, no “Star Wars” style battle scenes with aliens trying to “conquer the universe.” It can best be described as a “first contact”, “climate fiction”, and “political thriller" framed as a cautionary warning about the dangers of unchecked global warming, and it represents the most likely scenario of initial contact with an extraterrestrial civilization.