Darrell Bain’s finest novel to date. Savage Survival is a coming of age novel like no other and Lyda Brightner is a character you’ll remember forever. Raped at eleven. Forced to kill. Subjected to suffering in one brutal and horrible environment after another, with no parents or guardian to protect her as she grows up. Millions of earthmen have been captured by invulnerable aliens and are being put through the strangest and most terrifying survival tests ever imagined. Young Lyda Brightner’s first experience after being thrown into the midst of undisciplined humans is horrible enough, but she doesn’t know that the trials are just beginning. She doesn’t know that only a few hundred of the millions of captives will live through the vicious and cruel winnowing process. Again and again as she grows into a young woman, she has to call on the only resources she has available: her own innate bravery, her quick mind, her unwavering belief in the goodness of the majority of humans and ultimately, an enduring hope that one day she will find someone to love. But even if she lives through all this, she will still have to face the final question. What do the aliens have in mind for the few survivors?