Reviews

The oppressive imperialists and rebellious colonists familiar from Dickson's previous work return in this novel of the Earth's conquest by aliens. The nine-foot-tall Aalaag, members of a warrior society, use their advanced technology to treat humans like cattle. As one of the few people who can speak the alien language, linguist Shane Evert comes to know and understand the Aalaag even as he hates them. His gesture of protesta graffito of a pilgrimis picked up by the scattered, disorganized Resistance, and before long Shane finds himself leading a worldwide movement for freedom. Although the usual Dickson weaknesses of simplistic characters and verbose storytelling handicap the novel, his balancing strengthsthe use of historical parallels (here, Nazi and Soviet occupations) and righteous moral fervormake this one of his better recent books. (May 1)