I would add here Fiasco, by the great Stanislaw Lem. It is a story of a first contact, and it is terrifying in a very twisted mental way. The biggest question there is not why the aliens are not there or why the don’t want to make contact; the biggest question is who we are – this is embodied with the uncertainty who the main character is. Now, this is a story of an interstellar expedition that flies on an asteroid. Except they find in there two dead astronauts, frozen on the ice. One is the lead characted from a number of short stories of Lem – a space captain Pirks. He is the embodiment of quiet wisdom and restraint and the other is pretty much everything that Pirks is not. The question is deeper, though – it is not just who the astronaut is, but which one of them _is_ the true representative of the the human kind. So, it is a novel about who we are and although Lem never gives a direct answer, his hint – as I interpret it – is that we are not the lovable kind.

Terrific read, like most of the stuff that Lem left to us.

This is my comment at: https://www.tor.com/2023/04/20/five-space-books-to-send-a-chill-down-your-spine/#comment-972900