In Illegal Alien, Robert J. Sawyer manages to convince me that aliens from Alpha Centauri have come to Earth and need our help repairing their spaceship. He fails to convince me that the California District Attorney could try one of those aliens for first degree murder.Sawyer recognizes the improbability of such an event, because he doesn't even try to justify it. The president mumbles something about the federal government not being able to interfere with the case because the state has jurisdiction and it's an election year. Yeah, because staying ahead in those polls is way more important than diplomatic relations with an alien species. And no one else so much as lifts a finger to try to stop this insanity. Speaking of which, Sawyer briefly digresses into the amorality of the Tosok, who believe in a female God who predestines all events, proving that Hask is insane by human legal standards. Not that it matters: Sawyer is determined to wring a trial from this Tosok, because that is where the story lies.OK, so let's set aside the fact that trying an alien in a human court of law is silly. It's the story Sawyer has given us, and we have to work with that. To be fair, once one gets past this premise, the whole concept is intriguing. How exactly does one go about arguing the guilt or defending the innocence of an alien being? It's more than that though. Although Illegal Alien is, at times, very pedestrian in its tone, Sawyer manages to use his contrived courtroom drama to explore more than just the legal issues. He disguises his exposition as testimony, just as parents hide vegetables in the mashed potatoes, and suddenly readers find themselves learning about alien biology, technology, and philosophy even as they wonder if Hask will be acquitted—and whether he wants to go free.Let me be clear: the writing in this book is bad. The characters are flat, even stereotypical at times, and prone to that mode of generalization that passes for narration in a Sawyer novel. By this I mean, every thought that passes through a character's mind happens to be fundamental reflection on something integral to the plot. For example, take a thought running through the mind of Dale Rice, Hask's lawyer:Still, there weren't many times when it was an actual advantage to be African-American. He was used to the screwups in restaurants. Waitresses bringing him the wrong meal—mixing up his order with that of the only other black person in the entire place. White people constantly confused him with other black men, men who, except for their skin color, looked nothing like him, and were often decades younger.But the one time it perhaps was to his advantage to be big and black was when he wanted to go for late-night walks.Now, I'm not black, so I'm not going to pretend to know whether this characterization is accurate. I suspect, as with all anecdotes, it's true for some and false for many others. Regardless, my point is that Sawyer handles the whole issue of race about as deftly as clog dancers dance in cement shoes. Still not convinced? The detective in charge of the murder investigation is Jesus Perez—and that's pronounced Hay-soos, he is quick to remind us every single time he appears.When it comes to enthusiasm for cutting-edge developments in science, Sawyer is among the best writers out there. His near-future science fiction is thought-provoking, when it comes to the science parts, but his characters consistently fail to impress me. And his dialogue does not fare much better. Unfortunately, Illegal Alien is mostly dialogue, because the middle of the book consists of little more than dialogue-laden courtroom scenes broken up by interstitial moments of tension during recess. Maybe those more amenable to legal thrillers might tolerate such a high degree of dialogue; it certainly works for movies. But the sheer amount of time spent exchanging words in that courtroom, witnessing every single instance that Dale says, "Objection!" . . . rather than make me turn the page because of tension and interest, I turned it so I could finish the book faster.OK, so let's set aside the incredible premise and the bad writing. What have we left . . . oh yes, the aliens. Sawyer uses the courtroom as a theatre to tell us all about the Tosoks. Despite their taboos about discussing internal biology (comparable to our taboos on having sex in front of other people), we learn about the Tosoks' internal organs. We learn how they shed their skin, how they reproduce, how they count their familial relations. There are myriad ways Sawyer could have chosen to expound on these subjects; he chose the courtroom, and that decision works well. Although the legal question alone is intriguing, combined with Sawyer's sneaky world-building, it almost makes Illegal Alien downright compelling. (Almost.)It is hard to believe that the same author who wrote this also wrote WWW:Wake. I guess now that I've read this, that, and the Neanderthal Parallax series, I've seen examples of Sawyer at his best, worst, and middling. Unless there is something about this book's description that makes you salivate and throb in all the right places, this isn't the Sawyer novel I'd pimp to you.
Utterly unremarkable, but not bad enough to warrant 2 stars. This is one of those books that sells itself on a premise but does very little with it.The author seems to think that characterization consists solely of giving a precise physical description of a character, then giving said character the same standardized dialogue as the rest. Indeed, the physical descriptions are often comically out of place:Wills stood five-eight and weighed maybe a hundred and fifty-five pounds. Frank noticed he wore no watch, but was remarkably well dressed ...”You might think from this description that Wills is being confronted by a mugger threatening violence, hence our interest in his strength and potential possession of valuables. In fact, Wills is a professor on the witness stand in a trial, and gets a few lines explaining human anatomy. That's it.As for the dialogue, it's so uniform that I thought at times it had been wrongly attribute. For example, in a conversation between the self-professed layman lawyer Dale and the scientist Frank, the lawyer gets all the science-laced dialogue.The prose is very stale, almost documentary-like:“Dale and Frank were meeting in a restaurant over lunch. Dale was eating a clubhouse sandwich, French fries, and a Caesar salad; Frank was having a grilled chicken breast and tossed salad with fat-free Italian dressing.” Sorry, Mr Sawyer, but GRRM has you beat.Most damning of all, perhaps, is that this supposed courtroom drama has surprisingly little tension. The prosecution wasn't particularly invested; the climax is rather lame, so much so that I was expecting a twist to make it more interesting.Pros? - The book has many detailed scientific facts and explanations, particularly in astronomy. This is done in a clear manner without becoming condescending.- The book is short. Readable as a gift.Audiobook (narrated by Joe Barrett) 3/5: - Joe Barrett was why I got the audiobook: I had just listened to his phenomenal performance of The Bonfire of the Vanities. What happened, Joe? Although the reading is fluent enough, apart from the two southern African American characters and the generic alien voice, the characters all sound the same. This did the already indistinguishable dialogue no favors.
Do You like book Illegal Alien (1999)?
This was a very different book to go through, a genre that is rarely touched on: scifi legal drama. As such, it may not be everyone's cup of tea...Still, his writing style is engaging, his material (scientific, as well as legal) seems as well researched as with any of his books, and his storyline creates a positive direction that gives you some nice variety from the post-apocalypses, cyberpunks, and other cliches of the genre. While it's difficult to believe anyone would attempt to prosecute a visiting alien for a perceived crime, he does create here a very realistic philosophical examination of our legal system and how it would look to an outsider.I would recommend this book, perhaps not to everyone, but to anyone who enjoys Sawyer's writing and to anyone who approaches their fiction books with an open mind.
—Brian MacPherson
Mankind makes first contact with an alien civilization when a space ship is stranded in our solar system. The Tosoks come from Alpha Centauri, which is about four light-years away. One of the eight astronauts was killed in a tragic accident when he tried to repair the damage the ship sustained crossing the Kuiper Belt, an asteroid belt on the outer rim of the solar system. The other seven Tosoks are received on Earth with open arms. It looks like they have to spend two years on our planet until the parts they need for a lift off can be made. The strangers are a big media event and nobody thinks to ask them why they came here in the first place. Everybody just assumes that they are scientists wanting to make contact with other civilizations. A close friendship forms between Cletus Calhoun, the host of a popular scientific TV program, and Hask, one of the Tosoks. When Calhoun is found murdered in his quarters and Hask is the main suspect, the public is shocked.ILLEGAL ALIEN is a well-done mixture of science fiction and mystery. The idea of an alien defendant in a courtroom on Earth is intriguing and quite new. There's no Grisham-style dynamic young lawyer who wants to kick off his career with a spectacular case. The lawyer for the defense is a not quite young African American who seems predestined to defend a member of a very special ethnic minority. Sawyer doesn't bore the readers with endless trial preparation, but lets the bigger part of the story take place in the courtroom and describes the investigations that shed more and more light on the nature and origin of the Tosoks.The description of the Alpha Centauri system is vivid, and in the end you are convinced that even a technically much more advanced civilization doesn't have to be all that different from humanity. The beliefs of the Tosoks were shattered when they discovered evolution and realized that they were not created in the image of their omnipotent god. Without moralizing Sawyer holds up a mirror and shows us what grotesque shape religion as a universal phenomenon can take. ILLEGAL ALIEN is probably no eternal masterpiece, but a fun read and one of my favorite books by this author.
—Marrella
I didn't finish the whole book. I read the beginning, through the murder and up to the trial, then skipped to the ending. The others in my book group liked it well enough. I went into it with prior dislike of Sawyer's work (Rollover and Hominids). I couldn't suspend my disbelief that on a first contact we would arrest an alien, instead of sequestering then away from civilians until we knew that they understood our laws. And although there were aggressively ethnic characters, the default was still generally white male (except for the alien god). Law is not my favorite topic also. The aliens were well imagined and different; I didn't read enough to see if they were really coherent. And their ultimate purpose for exploring the universe fit in well.
—kvon
