The Alien Years - Tapa dura

‘We travel in the hands of a master’
New Scientist

Seven years from now, the aliens land. Mountainous aliens in veils of light: they bring silence and death to the world. The legendary Robert Silverberg takes us beyond INDEPENDENCE DAY to explore the consequences of invasion from space ...

Heedless of humanity’s pain, the aliens – the Entities – establish themselves all over the world within days of arriving in countless ships. The first (accidental) incident of violence against them results in summary removal of all power sources. Some are restored, but resistance, later, brings down a plague that wipes out much of the world’s population. Survivors are herded into detention centres and used as slave labour. Whatever is cherished by the people of Earth is dismantled by the Entities. Pride and freedom are qualities of the past.

Even so, people resist their might, led in the US by the Carmichael family of military men, a family split within but united in the face of the great threat posed by the Entities.

From their ranch high in the mountains, they search for the Prime, the centre of alien intelligence... into which they will hack, against which they will fight.

Meanwhile, in Prague, a quisling insinuates himself into the Entities’ confidence. Conflict becomes internecine: nothing is sacred or safe.

The Entities throughout maintain a distance from us, coldly disinterested. And fifty years after they arrived, they leave.

Free once more, the mystery of the Entities from first to last leaves more uncertainty than gladness at their departure can dispel. Human nature faces a challenge equal to that posed by expulsion from Paradise: expulsion from Hell.