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Illegal Alien cover art

Illegal Alien

Written by: Robert J. Sawyer
Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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Publisher's Summary

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.

©1997 Robert J Sawyer (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

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A bit dated now

I've read other books by Sawyer and would have to say this is my least favourite so far. Not that it's terrible, but maybe it's a little dated now (being over 20 years old), both in reference to technology and also in general treatment of alien communications. After my joy of watching "Arrival" and the sophisticated explanations of the difficulties of communication between species so very different, I found the utterly simplistic way that alien communication is dealt with in this novel to be jarringly unbelievable. Also, it's less pure science fiction and more of an American courtroom drama; and while I enjoy the former, I tend to avoid the latter so the last half of the book definitely dragged on a bit. So, massive suspension of disbelief required at many points in the book, and while the premise was entertaining and probably a bit more original 20 years ago, the effort didn't really pay off for me. Not terrible, and if you like courtroom dramas you'll probably like it more than I did, but definitely not one of Sawyer's best. #Audible1

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