Cavalcade [Hardcover]

Alison Sinclair's previous sf novels were the well-reviewed Legacies and Blueheart; this is her third. It opens in a bizarre setting of huge, cathedral-like caverns within an alien spacecraft--an environment designed for humans. This ship's broadcasts to Earth invited potential hitch-hikers to indicate their wish by waiting at the sea's edge on one particular night. No other promises are made, but more than 100,000 people accept the invitation...to find themselves suddenly aboard, with gaps in their memories. Alien biotechnology gobbles all their electronic gear (bad luck for the guy with the pacemaker) and poses subtle, continuing challenges. What follows is a slow learning process, sometimes painful, sometimes rewarding, as the passengers struggle to master their surroundings, and vice-versa. Both must adapt. Meanwhile, where are the aliens themselves? There are hints and glimpses, but also an artful reference to Waiting for Godot... Sinclair tells her tale in jigsaw sections, from a number of very human, believable and likeable character viewpoints. The traditional four horsemen--death, famine, plague, and even war--all harass our spacefarers before the final revelations and an exhilarating vision of the philosophy behind this immense journey. Cavalcade is written with charm and professional skill. --David Langford

The aliens have landed and sent out an invitation to the people of the world - a one-way ticket to a better life - first rate sf from a young British author

Having taken up the aliens' invitation to travel to a better world, the assembled humans find themselves in an enormous cathedral like edifice, their electronic clocks stopped at midnight - the moment they were picked up from the beaches - and with two hours or more missing. None of their advanced technology works - anything like a silicon based microchip is broken down to dust. Two groups form - one made up of a US army reconnaissence team , one a women's group in search of self determination. They try and organise life aboard the alien ship, since there are no actual aliens in evidence and the humans appear to have been left completely to their own devices. But after a time it seems that it is not that there are no aliens, but that the ship itself is an alien life form - and one that recruits its own crew from amongst the volunteers who come aboard. Some will fail, some will be rejected and some will survive. Only one woman seems to believe that communication with the aliens is possible, that communication is in fact the only way to survive and perhaps return to earth.

Alison Sinclair is now studying medicine at the University of Calgary - previously she worked as a lecturer and researcher at Leeds University specialising in neuro-biology.