The Grays [Hardcover]

Whitley Strieber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2006

We are not alone. Millions of people are confronting aliens that authorities say do not exist. Whitley Strieber--author of the legendary, #1 bestselling book Communion, which detailed his own close encounters--now returns to the riddle of aliens with The Grays. Drawing from a lifetime of research and his own experiences, Strieber offers up a fictional account of the conspiracy behind the alien presence on Earth while also giving us a startling look inside the alien mind that will astound, frighten, and enthrall readers.
Meet the Three Thieves, a group of Grays assigned to duty in a small Kentucky town. They have been preparing a child for generations. Innocent Conner Callaghan will face the ultimate terror as he struggles to understand who he has been breed to become, and what he must do to save humanity.
Meet Colonel Michael Morax, who strives to keep the secret of the Grays from the public for reasons so sinister, yet believable, that they read like truth . . . and very well may be.
And then there's Lauren Glass, government "empath" to the last surviving captive Gray, known only as B for Bob. Her unique talent to communicate with this captive Gray may be the only way humans can unravel their ultimate plan.
But when B for Bob suddenly escapes the highly secure underground Air Force facility that he's been captive in for years, it triggers a mass undertaking in that small Kentucky town. A frantic race begins, as the government must outmaneuver the Grays to keep the secret of the presence intact.
The Grays is a mind-bending journey behind the curtain of secrecy that surrounds the subject of aliens, written by the field's great master.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fact into fiction? In bestseller Strieber's engrossing SF thriller, which draws heavily from Communion (1987), the author's controversial account of his personal contact with aliens, Danny and Katelyn Callaghan are a happily married couple oblivious that both took a saucer ride as kids—until a UFO sighting in their Indiana town awakens subliminal memories and excites their genius teenage son, Conner. Meanwhile, in a secret facility in Colorado, Air Force Lt. Lauren Glass learns that the Roswell incident really happened, and that for decades the surviving ETs have been sharing their advanced science with us. In exchange, these "Grays" have sought to rejuvenate their dying species by genetically manipulating human receptacles for their DNA. But some military hard-liners see this as a betrayal of humanity, and they launch a manhunt that brings them to Indiana and the Callaghans' doorstep. Though Strieber's human characters are sometimes as stiff and unbelievable as his Grays, his depiction of black ops intrigue and military espionage is a first-rate exercise in literary paranoia. It goes without saying that his abduction scenarios have a disturbing authenticity that even skeptical readers will find provocative. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

In 1985, Strieber, then a top horror writer, author of The Wolfen 1978) and The Hunger (1981), had an alien-abduction experience. The book he wrote about it, Communion (1987), was so successful that his output of fiction dwindled in the 1990s as he expanded upon his biggest best-seller. Stillborn sequels to The Hunger emerged in 2001 and 2002, but The Grays is a quantum leap back to his fictional form, powered by his newer, nonfiction obsessions. In it aliens--the grays--have been with humanity for a good, long time, for excellent reasons. They've been helping humanity avoid their mistakes, which destroyed their emotions. Now, after a several-million-years journey, the rest of the grays, for whom those among us were pioneers with a purpose, are nearing Earth. Measures crucial to their success have been set in motion, most important among them, the creation of a human child of supernormal intelligence to receive the grays' advanced knowledge. Trouble is, hints of the child's existence had to be made to humans with authority; hence, the Roswell business. And hence, the development of rival factions within the top-secret military operation that guards the Roswell aliens. Strieber manages the plot built on those premises as a breakneck race to find the child and, depending on which faction the characters belong to, protect or destroy it. It's a terrific read, already blocked out like a screenplay for the major movie now in the works, marred only by a few treacly passages about the wonder of it all. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (August 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765313898
• ISBN-13: 978-0765313898
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary and Satisfying, August 19, 2006

By 

Will Bueche (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grays (Hardcover)

The Grays is a thriller about a young military woman who is assigned to a peculiar and dangerous job, and a boy living in a small college town who is unfortunate enough to receive attention from both strange, sky-dwelling beings and from a military cabal. The loyalties of the young military woman are severely tested as matters of national security collide with matters of human survival.

With unique depictions of threats generated by an alien presence - threats fueled as much by human paranoia as by alien intention - this thriller's spy games are scary and satisfying on many levels. Said to be informed by the real life alien encounters of the author (written of in his 1987 NY Times best-selling book Communion), The Grays is also inspired by the author's passion for environmental responsibility. In an earlier novel he'd written about a terrible leader who tried to avert environmental apocalypse by euthenizing a third of the planet's population. A similar scenario is revisited in The Grays, as politicians conceive of ways to escape from a fate they fear - incorrectly - could end the human race entirely.

This is not a horror novel, though frights come steadily. The underlying horror in the novel is in how Strieber's characters find themselves trapped between the fear of the unknown and the fear of the known - and must make life or death choices in this "gray area". Recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book, June 15, 2007

By 

Randy Wolf (Seattle, Wa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Grays (Mass Market Paperback)

Even though I think the whole UFO thing is ridiculous I enjoyed this book. Say what you want about Whitley Strieber, and I have enjoyed his other books as well, the difference between this story and other far fetched UFO/alien stories is the writer. Whitley Strieber is an excellent writer but he actually believes this UFO stuff so there is added passion in his writing. Kind of like Carl Sagan writing about physics.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast and fascinating, August 29, 2006

By 

George A. Ramos "Books and Kindle" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Grays (Hardcover)

Initially expecting a sci-fi cliche with heavy doses of paranoia, this book blew my mind with it's absolutely fascinating ideas. The chapters come fast and furious, and yet each one has a small gem of insight, one that would cause me to shut the book and think about what just happened.

Why do the characters react the way they do? Sometimes afraid, sometimes brilliant, sometimes mindless animals, I realized these are fully-fleshed, real characters that behave the way real people do. Mr. Strieber's insight into human behavior is masterful and lends a heavy realism to the book.

The scenes involving non-humans are both terrifying and mind-blowing. The pages flew by as I was riveted by these scenes, captivated by one surprise after another. I've never read anything like this before, particularly the pages that delve into mind of the non-humans.

The book reads like a spy thriller, though one with a beating, human heart at its core. The book is short, and the large cast of characters barely have enough time to process what's happening, swept away by events and revelations the same way the reader is torn from the mundane by this high-energy dynamo of a novel.

Believer in UFO lore or not, you'll love this book if you love fiction. It's worth the few sleepless nights you'll devote to it.