SOJALS rating:

Awful (1/5)

I first read this in August 2001 and most recently in November 2001

An alien arrives on Earth in a last-ditch attempt to save our world from extinction. Naively he visits the White House in an attempt to pass his important message to the President. He's rebuffed, leaves and gets mugged in a Washington side-street.

Enough to make anyone call it a day, and certainly enough for our sensitive and refined alien. Especially since his powerful defensive technology is now in the hands of the brutal mugger.

As the mugger roams free, bending people cruelly to his will, a secret government agency is on the trail of the alien and anyone who came into contact with him,

Susan Hill, budding intrepid journalist, at last has a story she can get her teeth into. She's chasing her alien and she's going to get him

Mick Aaronson is Susan's boos, he's a hard-bitten, irretrievably cynical journalist. He doesn't believe in aliens, even when he meets him.

Serena Blake is an heiress and cokehead. She's on a downhill path, but now she's found the alien, something has changed in her. It's as though she remembers him, and she can't bear to lose him now.

Harry Lauter knows an ancient secret, but he's been abused so much by governments determined to suppress it that he's no longer sure what he knows.

Together these unlikely heroes must rescue our alien, evade the black helicopters and somehow ensure that the alien's message is delivered and acted upon before humanity is destroyed.

This is an entertaining, fairly gripping read. The problem is that I couldn't take some of the premises seriously. I like spacecraft, but I'm dubious about UFOs; human-alien sex is fine by me, but I don't believe the people who claim alien abduction and abuse.

Still it's fun and it makes a change from "K-PAX".