My reactions upon reading this novel in 1990. A spoiler follows.

Reeves-Stevens does a competent job of synthezing ufoology and alien abduction accounts into a plot of future humans snatching humans to save them from genetic stagnation and some of us from death in a mysterious apocalypse that seems to be an alien invasion (only a band of humans in New Zealand survives). It is the vagueness of this future war and apocalypse that is annoying. The second letdown in the novel is that the subject matter of alien abduction is such a well-worked vein that even Reeves-Stevens’ skill can not bring it completely to life. The created mythology of ufo snatch raids is a synthesis of ideas about ufos, ideas largely known already. The novelty is gone. Reeves-Stevens brings the body of speculations to life, but it’s a weak life. ( )

I’m a sucker for tales of UFOs and little grey men abducting people. I was looking forward to reading this book since I’d first heard about it. Though this is a tale of UFOs and there is involvement with FBI agents, it is quite different from the X-Files clone you might be expecting.

Interesting story and the writing at times is quite lovely. But I never connected to the characters and so I felt distanced from the book. Also, I think too much time was spent on government agency infighting. In the end, I don’t think that thread added anything to the book. Indeed whenever that became the focus the pacing of the book suffered.

There is good stuff here and the author’s theory on UFOs and what the aliens are after make for interesting reading. But there are too many other problems with the book for me to be able to recommend it. ( )