
From the back cover Warner paperback February 2004: 2019: NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe -- a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal... 2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life... to annihilate it.
"In the Ocean of Night" by Gregory Benford. Very nice XXth century style sci-fi. Written by an academic, so it describes lots of nasty committee meetings.
"The Fish That Ate the Whale" - about bananas
"Count Belisarius" by Robert Graves - historical novel, Byzantium, early Christians
"My World Line" by George Gamow - autobiography; not very relatable for someone with a lower class background
The same idea was in Gregory Benford's novel In the Ocean of Night in the 1970s.
(Not to say I think this theory about the Fermi paradox is a very good one.)
