Synopses & Reviews
Publishing simultaneously with the mass market paperback release of Sorcerers of Majipoor, this major science fiction epic from an award-winning author tells the story of a California family and their struggle against a chillingly powerful alien presence.
The Carmichael Family is a Mixed Bag of Duty-Bound militarists and wild-eyed radicals, wives and mistresses, children and pets. Led by Colonel Anson Carmichael III, they have their share of quibbling, infighting, and generational differences, but all in all, they're a typical California clan.
Then one day the Aliens turn up. They take over so completely, it's like they've always been there, and soon the Colonel sees his brother die fighting the vast fires they carelessly set and his sister-in-law embrace them as the answer to all her new age prayers. Hunkering down on his hill north of Los Angeles, he starts organizing local resistance. But even as his children rally around him, and the prodigals return, he soon finds that the Aliens are indifferent to his efforts until violence is used against them -- and then their response is immediate and devastating.