Drew Mendelson

This action-packed story has it all: first contact with another sentient species, skirmish with said species, government cover-up because, well, oil is involved and that rules all. What it doesn't have is more pages: a relationship between two of the main human characters went from "nice to meet you" to "let's make lots of babies" in no time at all. Protagonists came and went too quickly and suffered from underdevelopment. The back story for the aliens was very well done and hopefully forms the basis for additional stories. The aliens themselves could have used a little more character development as well -- we got to know two of them well enough, but it's hard to say how representative they are of the species.

That aside, the story is compelling -- the chain of events and actions of peripheral characters who don't have a complete picture of what's going on are spot-on plausible. There were probably a few more dots that could be connected in a longer story (a World War 3 scenario would be nearly inevitable given the state of affairs at the end of the story); hopefully the abrupt ending is an indication of more to come.… (mehr)