Book Review: Illegal Alien - Robert Sawyer

As recommended to me by a comment on my blog. This is ridiculous fun from start to finish.

It's a John Grisham-style courtroom drama. Only the defendant is an alien. Literally a multi-limbed beast from a dozen light-years away. That's it. That's the whole plot. And it works wonderfully. Nothing wrong with a bit of good clean sci-fi fun. It lightly explores racism - using the aliens as a proxy for the way humans become defensively tribal. There's a brief diversion into the evils of colonialism which ought to be explored in every visitors-from-a-distant-planet book in my opinion.

If I had one criticism, it would be that it is very obviously written with an eye on getting optioned for a TV series or movie. There are plenty of lines like:

Dale had a James Earl Jones voice; his every syllable was as a pronouncement from on high

It's a pity Sawyer hasn't had much luck breaking out of books. He has an inventive mind, a fine eye for fast-paced plots, and a delightful way of looking at the universe.

A great holiday read.