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Illegal Alien

Name: Illegal Alien
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
ISBN: 9781937007218

by Robert J. Sawyer

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Overview

When a disabled spaceship enters Earth's atmosphere, seven members of the advanced Tosok race are welcomed by the world. Then a popular scientist is murdered, and all evidence points to one of the Tosoks. Now, an alien is tried in a court of law-and there may be far more at stake than accounting for one human life.

About the Author, Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer has been called “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by The Ottawa Citizen.

He is one of only seven writers in history—and the only Canadian—to win all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo (which he won in 2003 for Hominids), the Nebula (which he won in 1995 for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won in 2005 for Mindscan).

In total, Rob has authored over 18 science-fiction novels and won forty-one national and international awards for his fiction, including a record-setting ten Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”) and the Toronto Public Library Celebrates Reading Award, one of Canada’s most significant literary honors. In 2008, he received his tenth Hugo Award nomination for his novel Rollback.

His novels have been translated into 14 languages. They are top-ten national mainstream bestsellers in Canada and have hit number one on the Locus bestsellers’ list.

Born in Ottawa in 1960, Rob grew up in Toronto and now lives in Mississauga (just west of Toronto), with poet Carolyn Clink, his wife of twenty-four years.

He was the first science-fiction writer to have a website, and that site now contains more than one million words of material.

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Editorials

VOYA - Joanna Morrison

If aliens landed on Earth, what would happen? Maybe movies such as Contact and Close Encounters of the Third Kind have paved the way. In Illegal Alien, no one seems too concerned about a disabled spaceship piloted by members of the advanced Tosok race which lands on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean. The crew of Tosoks have landed to ask for help. Their craft has been damaged by comets, and they offer to trade their scientific knowledge for help in repairing their spaceship. At first, it seems to be a mutually profitable transaction. However, everything is called off when popular astronomer and television personality Cletus "Clete" Calhoun is discovered horribly murdered. All the evidence, forensic and otherwise, points to a Tosok called Hask as the murderer. Hask is arrested, defense attorney Dale Rice is engaged as his lawyer, and the stage is set for the trial of the century: the prosecution of an extraterrestrial for the murder of a human. Sawyer, whose The Terminal Experiment (Harper, 1995) was awarded the Nebula in 1995 for best science fiction novel, does a fine job here of combining science fiction with the elements of a legal thriller. Think of Illegal Alien as a cross-over title. It will appeal to readers of John Grisham as well as fans of science fiction, particularly readers of Spider Robinson and Isaac Asimov. VOYA Codes: 3Q 4P S (Readable without serious defects, Broad general YA appeal, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).