Alien invasion yarn from the veteran author of Sorcerers of Majipoor (1997), etc. Seven years from now, huge alien spaceships appear all over the Earth; in California, a ship's exhaust carelessly causes vast brushfires that pilot Mike Carmichael dies trying to extinguish. Mike's weird New Age wife, Cindy, goes aboard the alien vessel, relays a message of peace and friendship, and refuses to leave. All other attempts to communicate with the aliens fail. Meanwhile, Mike's brother, retired Colonel Anson Carmichael III, is summoned to the Pentagon to discuss the situation. The aliens come in three varieties: the dominant squid-like Entities; the balloon-like Spooks; and the huge blue Behemoths. Clearly, the aliens are highly advanced and canŽt be defeated, but what do they want? The Colonel returns to his California ranch none the wiser, but soon the aliens switch off the world's electricity, and governments, economies, and social orders collapse overnight. The Colonel gathers the Carmichael clan at his ranch and founds a center of resistance to the aliens, who can control anyone by means of the Touch (a telepathic inquisition) and the Push (an irresistible compulsion). Attempts to damage the aliens or their installations are met with devastating plagues and other brutal reprisals. The years pass. Some humans, like computer whiz Karl-Heinrich Borgmann, collaborate with the aliens. The Carmichaels continue to scheme and plotŽineffectually, but they never give up through more than half a century of aloof occupation. Realistic, often intriguing, but too episodic to be fully involving.

Silverberg (Sorcerors of Majipoor) returns to his 1986 short story "The Pardoner's Tale" as the inspiration for this sobering and frightening novel of extraterrestrial invasion. The narrative opens seven years hence, with the arrival of alien spaceships on Earth, an event that has a devastating effect on the Carmichael family. Pilot Michael Carmichael is killed trying to fight the huge firestorms in Los Angeles that erupt when the alien ships land; his wife, Cindy, leaps at the chance to go aboard one of the UFOs and become an interpreter for the "Entities"; and his brother, Colonel Anson Carmichael, is summoned by Washington to help cope with the situation. Before there is time to react, however, the aliens' intent becomes known as they disrupt all electricity and plunge civilization back into the Dark Ages. Silverberg's story is clear-eyed, credible and occasionally bleak. Faced with an omnipotent enemy, mankind's only alternative is to refuse to capitulate and to attempt to endure. Isolated and relatively safe in their mountain ranch, the extended Carmichael clan tries to go on with their lives while working on ways to resist their oppressors. Silverberg's technique of leapfrogging several years ahead between chapters furthers momentum, and while the enemy in his story is disturbingly inhuman, the focus of the tale is the humanity of his characters and their efforts to keep hope alive. The novel's ending seems arbitrary, but Silverberg's rich characters, his dead-on target vision of modern society, his mastery at building tension‘all are in evidence in this notable outing from one of the very best. Agent: Ralph Vicinanza. (Aug.) FYI: Silverberg has won five Nebulas and four Hugos in his 44 years as an SF writer. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In the first decade of the new millennium, a sudden invasion by an alien species known only as the Entities brings about the swift and total conquest of Earth except for a small pocket of resisters led by Col. Anson Carmichael and his remarkable family. The latest novel by sf grand master Silverberg chronicles a half-century of struggle and frustration as generations of Carmichael sons and daughters strive to keep alive the concept of freedom in the face of overwhelmingly superior conquerors. Silverberg remains a superb raconteur whose patriarchal tendencies serve as a minor flaw in a remarkable study of human endurance and patience that belongs in most sf collections. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.