"Very exciting speculative fiction"
In 1928, extraterrestrials that looked human went through
Riker's Island to become citizens of their new home. The
Greens were chased off their home world by the Grays in a
war that started over a simple misunderstanding. The Greens
did not know that the Grays, in order to escape the Others,
followed the Greens to earth. For decades neither group
knew of the other's existence until a boy from one group
and a girl from the other became friends. Their elders found out since both live in New York City;
the Grays try to shove the Greens off the island until they
agree to a truce if the Greens kill Melantha Green who can
destroy the city with her mental powers. Innocent
bystanders Roger and Caroline Whittier take Melantha to try
to hide her when someone from the group hands her to them
but she disappears and they don't know which group got her.
The Whittiers are determined to save Melantha and their
city yet also somehow forge a truce between the opposing
camps. There are many aliens who live among us in science fiction
stories such as the Men in Black, but Timothy Zahn has a
unique and original way of taking a tribe plot and turning
it into a fantastic storyline. This is an action oriented
story where it is almost impossible to figure out the
characters motives and nobody knows who is a friend or an
enemy. This makes for a lot of suspense and the onus is on
the reader to figure out who is friend or foe. There's a
surprise twist at the end of the story that makes THE GREEN
AND THE GRAY a very exciting work of speculative fiction. Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 16, 2004
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted January 25, 2007
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Timothy Zahn, author of Heir to the Empire, the best selling Star Wars novel of all time, has crafted a fresh, suspenseful tale of conflict in New York City that threatens to escalate into all-out genocidal warfare. For seventy-five years the Greens and the Grays have lived quietly among us in the shadows of New York, alien refugees from a war of attrition that utterly destroyed the rest of their kind. Passing as everyday citizens, yet with powers and technologies unknown to humanity, each group has long believed that they are all that remain of their old world and their terrible conflict. But now, to their mutual surprise, they have found each other, and the old hatreds and fears have once again risen to the surface. And each side is preparing again for war. On a cold October night, Roger and Caroline Whittier, a young couple struggling with their marriage, are accosted at gunpoint, and an unexpected burden is thrust upon them: Melantha Green, a twelve-year-old girl snatched from the hands of a peace coalition consisting of both Greens and Grays. The coalition had been preparing to cold-bloodedly sacrifice her in a last-ditch effort to prevent the impending battle...and it desperately wants her back.
As Roger and Caroline strive to protect Melantha and to understand the alien cultures they have suddenly been thrust into, they find aid in unlikely places. They're joined in their efforts by NYPD Detective Thomas Fierenzo, who's determined to prevent what he believes to be an impending gang war, and by Otto Velovsky, a former Ellis Island clerk who was present at the very beginning of the aliens' new life on earth. Unlikely allies,unlikely heroes...and they have just one week to find a way to prevent New York City from becoming a battlefield the likes of which the world has never known...
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