DeathDay
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Enslaved after the slaughter of billions by a violent race of aliens called the Saurons, Earth’s few remaining humans are forced into back breaking labor building mysterious temples for their new masters. The captors claim that these temples, once finished, will allow them to leave Earth in peace once again. They enlist Alexander Franklin, former governor of Washington, as the head of their puppet government to help manage their mission. Meanwhile, a group of escaped slaves form a resistance movement which grows with each passing day.
When former government bodyguard Jack Manning, well-versed in the art of survival, finds himself placed in the center of power as security for Franklin, he learns the brutal truth behind the temples. He faces an agonizing choice: to stay where he is, alongside the woman he loves, or to aid the rebels and their fight for freedom. The survival of the human race hangs in the balance.
With intense, fast paced action, an unforgettable hero and a riveting story, DeathDay is the first book in a series by bestselling science fiction author William C. Dietz.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Paranoids, take note. Bestselling military SF author Dietz (By Blood Alone; By Force of Arms; etc.) requires just the first six lines to destroy every major city on Earth in this overheated opener of a near-future alien-invasion epic, which reads much like an inferior clone of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Several nations fire missiles at each other, not noticing colossal extraterrestrial spaceships hovering over the planet (neither does any astronomer). The huge, insect-like Saurons, nicknamed "chits" for their chitinous shells, kill billions. They enslave the survivors to construct "temples" that they claim will be a path to "a planet named Paradise" but are actually hatcheries where adult Saurons die giving birth. The invaders drop leaflets with instructions to bring them to "any Sauron-sponsored processing center and receive six cans of Spam," a courtesy possibly in response to human spacecraft offering galactic friendship. A plaque from Pioneer Ten, launched in 1972, served as "a space-going road map, pointing right at Earth." The aliens admit they surreptitiously "monitored thousands of audiovisual broadcasts," besides absorbing major languages and mapping technology. So those UFOs were real after all. The book abounds in racial hatreds at the same time that it high-mindedly condemns them. The action constant, confusing, deadening and dull abruptly halts, mid-slaughter, to announce, heroically, "the countdown continues" in a sequel slated for 2002. Be patient.
