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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some good ideas, weak points, but too long for the payoff, October 20, 2005
This review is from: The Alien Years (Mass Market Paperback)
Considering the plethora of evil alien invasions in the science fiction genre, Silverberg comes upon what strikes this reviewer as a significant revelation: that the behaviors and motivations of any truly alien race will most likely be wholly incomprehensible to us. Slaughter, slavery, and colonialism are entirely human concepts, and the notion that aliens would share these concepts is sheer anthropomorphism. So the seemingly invincible creatures who take over the Earth in this unusual novel engage in activities which are largely clandestine, and are never explained either to humanity or the reader. Convincing as this idea is, it's by its nature not a very good recipe for an adventure. Absent any weaknesses, or even motivation, on the part of the villains, the story focuses on how the alien occupation affects the lives of ordinary human beings. Some die immediately, unable to adapt to extraterrestrial rule. Others become collaborators, willing to work for whoever is in charge, without regard for the heritage of their race. And one isolated group, the unlucky Carmichael family, tries to maintain an attitude of resistance, even though such is clearly futile. This story should be a tribute to the perseverance of the human spirit, but instead winds up as more of a meditation on stubbornness, showing how various members of the Carmichael clan fare against the so-called Entities. The conclusion to this book is certainly one of its more problematic elements. Although this reviewer has derided similar types of endings in other novels, given the context of this story's implicit assumptions discussed above, the ending really makes a lot of sense here. And however unsatisfying it may be to the average reader, it's just as unsatisfying for the protagonists. But many will be sorely disappointed. A bigger problem is the novel's sheer length, which is truly excessive given the amount of action described. We sit through intimate psychological portraits of a number of characters, none of whom are really all that important in the bigger picture, while the story moves on at a glacial pace. It's perhaps the extent of the setup, more than anything, that makes the ending seem so weak. It's hard to see why the same story could not have been told in half as many pages with just as much impact, making it a distinctly better book. Still, this really wasn't a bad book; it's got some good ideas, and it's a pretty easy read. And it's hard not to get involved in the fate of the resistance movement. Though the odds are inevitably stacked against them, they never give up the good fight - even when it's hard to say what the best course of action is. But Silverberg has written much better stories than this.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't live up to its potential, July 18, 2005
This review is from: The Alien Years (Mass Market Paperback)
Hi! I'm an avid book reader of old who fell away from the habit during college. I recently decided to go back to my old hobby, and bought a bunch of books from my local new and used book store. I decided I might as well share my thoughts. My first was "The Alien Years," by Robert Silverberg. I read some of his collaborations with Isaac Asimov years ago, and so maybe my expectations were a little high. The concept was great. Aliens come down and take over, but instead of blowing us all away like in "War of the Worlds" or "Independence Day," they set themselves up as unstoppable tyrants and, directly or indirectly, enslave us as a race. A medium-long book covering years and years of time. Plenty of time to explore this concept. Sounded great. Sadly, in my eyes, the book did not live up to its potential. I enjoyed the second half better than the first, but overall, it kept feeling as though the best parts of the story were taking place ... "off stage?" "Between acts?" Something. Imagine having a forty page chapter build and build toward an event ... and then the event itself is summarized in the last page or two. Next chapter, seven years later. Again, I feel that the book DID get better as it moved along, so I do not regret sticking with it. More and more action started taking place DURING the chapters instead of between them. Over all, I guess the book was "just OK." It had the potential to BE "War of the Worlds" stretched out over fifty years, but instead, it just became something else entirely, something else not as exciting as it could have been.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rich and Insightful Meditations, September 8, 2006
This review is from: The Alien Years (Mass Market Paperback)
This extraordinary science fiction novel is only ostensibly about a long period of alien occupation of Earth. It packs more dead-on social observation into the first 25 pages than vast truckfuls of our current baleful crop of "literary fiction," and without either the pretension or constipated phrase-making. Silverberg writes straightforwardly clear modern English, supple, gracefully colorful, never missing significant detail but always smoothly moving the narrative ahead. There are several very well rounded, complex characters, and few minor characters pass without something important observed about them. Truth is, this is not just a science fiction novel: an alien invasion circa right now simply serves as the platform for rich and insightful meditations upon America, the sort of people that inhabit it, California in particular, and the direction of what we call freedom. Always wry and sometimes satirical, Silverberg's give away comes early when we see the aliens land and disembark. Their curved, needle-like ships that land upright are straight out of every 1950s black and white B science fiction movie matinee. The tripod-like aliens are also common currency, and a sort of tip of the hat to H.g. Wells, who the book is partial tribute and payback to. The extraordinary thing is the aliens' sublime detatchment and disinterest in us. They start no wars, just occasionally retaliate against us as we do against yellow jackets on our patios with a can of Raid in our hands, and about as randomly. There's nothing wrong with the story's ending either, and even though the book is 480 pages you will move there very quickly. I picked this book up as a break from more serious things, and met a dimension of my fellow countrymen and the current pulse of our nation that has all but disappeared from American fiction. From old military types to new age babes, occasional heros, computer geeks, perverts, Islamists, ordinary people caught up in bigger things, everyday malcontents, moms and dads, kids in love -- a big bite of who we are and what we are about is miraculously preserved here.
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