OT but: If you're interested in first contact stories, you might check out Peter Cawdron. For a quick writer of pop-sci-fi, he's pretty good. He's taken on first-contact from 20+ different starting points and has a bunch of books on Kindle Unlimited. To the lay-person, his fiction seems well researched and real-as-possible (given the requirements of the story). Sort of Peter Watt's "Blindsight" without the fireworks/flourishes
Non-affiliate links...: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MXCG244 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W2WP5F3