Product Description
By the winner of the 1995 Nebula Award for best novel, a superb new science-fiction thriller: Aliens have arrived on Earth … and they seem friendly.
Set in the present day, communication with the aliens – bizarre creatures with four-fold rather than two-fold symmetry from the Alpha Centauri system – is relatively straightforward. Their mother ship has been damaged and the people of Earth are asked to manufacture replacement parts, with the offer of alien technology in return. It will take a couple of years.
But the story climaxes in a tense courtroom drama with one of the aliens on a murder charge. It is a scenario that gives an entirely new slant to the broad moral issues and intense legal dilemmas beloved of Grisham readers: ET meets A TIME
TO KILL. The aliens actually have an INDEPENDENCE DAY-type agenda, but dissenters amongst them, one of whom is the alien accused of murder, are opposed to their government’s policy of sterilization of all other worlds.
… Then another starship arrives from Alpha Centauri with DIFFERENT aliens on board carrying news that eclipses all that has gone before.
The pace is remorseless, terrific, buttressed by the flow of exotic information – the aliens’ religion is especially interesting and relevant. Absorbing and exciting. Sawyer is a natural writer with a big future.
From the Back Cover
ALIEN HAVE ARRIVED ON EARTH – AND THEY 'SEEM' FRIENDLY
Though bizarre to look at, the aliens easily make themselves understood. They hail from the Alpha Centauri system and call themselves Tosoks. Their mother ship has been damaged – the people of Earth are asked to manufacture replacement parts, with the offer of alien technology in return. It will take a couple of years. A wave of hope and joy spreads around the Earth: we are not alone!
But soon one of the aliens has been charged with the murder of TV’s most famous stargazer, thought to be the aliens’ friend. A tense courtroom drama unfolds…
And as justice is about to be served, another starship arrives from Alpha Centauri with different aliens on board, carrying news that eclipses all that has gone before.
PRAISE FOR NEBULA AWARD-WINNER ROBERT J. SAWYER:
The sense of fun and adventure SF had in its so called Golden Age … a modern sensibility … the best of both worlds’”
THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION
”Canada’s answer to Michael Crichton”
MONTREAL GAZETTE
About the Author
Robert Sawyer was born in Toronto, Canada. He studied Radio & Television Arts, and after graduating in 1982 he began a lucrative career in journalism. He began writing science fiction in 1988 and is now a full-time writer. Sawyer has twice won the Aurora, the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award; and in 1993 he won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, by the Crime Writers of Canada. He won the 1995 Nebula Award for his novel Terminal Experiment.
