Description: Caz Fortel is a great liar. In fact, he's a professional.
It's his job to lie to people who steal works of art, and to get the goods back. But when Caz gets the big call from the FBI—a million bucks to recover a stolen statue of significant cultural value—it comes with a downside. His assigned partner has more of an interest in Jesus than Caz is comfortable with. Oh, and he’s an alien with four arms and a tremendous sense of smell.
When aliens showed up fifteen years ago, Earth cut a deal to join the Panstellar Consociation as a protectorate, allowing their new neighbors to set up a warp tunnel in orbit, in exchange for advanced tech secrets. Now Caz is caught up in the retrieval of their missing statue, and they want the mission kept quiet.
Or Earth could be in very, very big trouble.
My Thoughts: For Us Humans if a witty sci-fi that deals with questions of faith in the face of (peaceful) alien take over. Caz is an art cop who despises these alien invaders, not because they destroyed earth, but because they destroyed Christianity (or so he believes). This was a very well written discussion of what makes God and faith real to us, and whether or not we can be shaken from those beliefs by events which we thought impossible. Throughout most of the book, the questions of faith were handled in an organic way, coming up at times when discussions seemed most natural.
Later in the story, however, these discussions seemed more forced. There was one scene in particular, where I felt that the message was being driven home a little too bluntly. I do not wish to describe the scene though, lest I give too much away.
Beyond the faith elements of the novel, I really enjoyed the world building and description of normal, everyday life... just now with aliens living among us. Not all of it made as much sense as I would have liked, such as the Ghiqasu speaking English for most of the book even when only conversing with each other. Yet the humorous tone made these issues easier to overlook.
If you are looking for a humorous, slower-paced, sci-fi (with a number of movie references that you may or may not get), then I would definitely recommend this read. Though I could see areas where a few changes would have allowed me to like it better, it definitely has me interested in reading more of Steve's passed works.
I have provided an honest review after receiving an ecopy of the book from the publisher through Netgalley.
Below is an affiliate link.
No comments:
Post a Comment