Customer Reviews

Khan's Persuasion

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Khan is a considerable surprise, coming from Felice. Like all Felice novels, it presents complex alien cultures and alien-human interactions. The characterizations are also complicated and engaging. One cannot easily predict how each character will react as with so much SF. And one cannot predict the outcome of this novel by reading other Felice. An alien contact story first, Khan narrates the gradual learning process that links a psionic race with a seemingly primitive culture with non-psionic, but technologically advanced humans who have come to investigate this sparsely settled planet. The alien leader, Rukmani Khan, true to form for a culture which is based on our illusions of the Middle East, is interested primarily in a young woman in the epedition, Sindon Liang. She encourages this intererst in order to do in-depth anthropological/sociological research and the result is predictable, especially when we add the factor of this race's persuasive powers, telepathy and telekenesis. Rukmani apparently promises, and delivers, a heighted sexual experience that enslaves Sindon to the point where she abandons the humans and goes with him to bear a daughter, Tara and see her to young womanhood. Of course, there is a serpent in the garden, in the form of Khan's loving wife.

Jan Bogstad