The Visitor
Brent Ayscough
Black Opal Books, Jul 21 2015, $13.99
www.blackopalbooks.com/
ISBN: 9781626943223
The Federation of Planets assign
xeno-anthropologist Tak to study sentient life on earth in order to assess
whether the prime species, as it ventures into space, poses a threat to
peaceful races in the galaxy. Following
an off-planet preliminary analysis, she chooses the United States as her
starting point due to this nation being the most technologically advanced on this
orb. Thus she learns English and
descends towards the country’s center, Kansas.
However, on her first solo mission, Tak
miscalculates America’s radar system.
Knowing she has been detected, Tak flees to Poland where she meets
international arms merchant Baron Von Limbach.
He mentors her on all things earthling; while she accompanies him on his
newest paying (by a wealthy patron encouraged by a true believer East Indian
woman) gig: returning the Dalai Lama to Tibet by liberating the nation from the
Chinese annexation. To achieve his
objective Von Limbach hires a Kazakhstan
scientist to customize Ebola that will only attack Han Chinese. His efforts convince Tak that this world is
ruthlessly deadly while the CIA and DOD plan to capture and question her using enhanced interrogation
techniques; unaware that failure of her to return to her space ship means global destruction.
Applying to terrorism and war by extrapolating the efforts to DNA-customize
medicine yet also mindful
of what happened with atomic energy; Brent Ayscough authors a
fabulous cautionary science fiction in which the critical storyline comes
across very plausible. Adding depth to
the thrilling plot is Tak’s world tour as she tastes, hears and sees some of the pluses on this
strange in which war seems to be the prime
conflict resolution technique.
Harriet Klausner
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