Mini-Review Monday: People of the Sun

People of the Sun
By Jason Parent
Series: Standalone
Paperback: 303 pages
Publication Date: March 15, 2017
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✬ | 4.5 / 5 |

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Categories: Science Fiction, Aliens, Review Copy

All life comes from the sun. Sometimes, death comes with it.

Filled with hope and driven by fear, four would-be heroes are driven from their home planet in a desperate bid to save their civilization from extinction. But survival takes on a whole new meaning when a malfunction sends their ship plummeting toward Earth.

Surviving the crash is only the first obstacle on their path to salvation. The marooned aliens soon discover that Earth’s beautiful exterior masks an ugly foundation, a place inhabited by a warrior race that’s on a path toward self-destruction.

**I received this review copy in exchange for an honest review**

I was thoroughly impressed with this story! I'm not a huge fan of the whole alien invasion idea, but People of the Sun was original and refreshing. It started off like a much weirder episode of X-Files, with a police officer and a geologist hiking to a recently dried out lake bed, searching for the 'meteorite' that caused the evaporation of water. They come upon a large, black rock, which obviously isn't a rock at all. As they are examining this anomaly, they notice footprints leading from it into the woods. So they follow them. This decision changes the world forever.

Connor is our main protagonist. With a cushy job as a professor of geology, he is not ready for the strange events about to take place. He has no real friends, no family to take care of. So when he finds four aliens in the woods of New Hampshire, he offers to be an alien ambassador between them and his own government.

The four aliens come from the sun, which they call Symoria. It is a barren land with little food, so their council sends them on a mission to find resources. Upon take-off of their craft, their whole world explodes, killing all of their remaining species, save for them.

'Look at that sky,' he said. 'Look at all this life around us. Listen, and you can hear creatures at work. It's so busy here, so alive. Our home is stagnant dirt and darkness, sullen and empty. Maybe Symoria died long ago, and we were just too stubborn to see it.'

Tryst is the only female Symorian left. She is optimistic and strong, a wonderfully written female character. Kazi, on the other hand, is a total asshole and I knew it from his introduction. I hated him. He had no morals and a need for power that made me nauseous at times. His character was written so well; he was the perfect villain for this story and I wanted to throat punch him more times than I can recall.

Upon the alien's arrival on Earth, their ability to 'come in peace' is hampered by the fact that their touch incinerates humans. Water gives them incomprehensible powers, such as telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. There is no water on their home planet, so their evolution is almost instantaneous on Earth. Their skin is impenetrable, even in the face of machine guns and missiles. Their appearance poses another problem as they kind of look like very large bats.

Tryst only smiled bigger, so big it covered half her face with four rows of double-pointed teeth, massive fangs retracted behind black gums. Her slim, sinewy lips, so colorless they were nearly transparent, curled beneath her bulbous pink globe eyes.

I loved the descriptions of our government as well. It made me laugh with the sad reality that is our own ruling body. The fact that they would willingly start a war with a more powerful species because they are just that, a more powerful species spoke of the truth of humans. We are always scared of the unknown because we take little time to understand them and their ways of life. It is not our way, so it cannot be right.

Allison ran for office with a sincere desire to improve the country, but quickly found out hers was a rare trait for a politician. She had no disillusions about the flawed American political animal, controlled by old, fat elephants and heehawing asses. But Allison had underestimated the selfishness of most of her affiliates, regardless of their party designation.

I fell in love with the aliens, against my better judgement as a human! I rooted for them, against my own fellow man, and hoped that they would be left alone on Earth to rebuild all that they had lost. All in all, I really loved this story. It was hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time. Full of politics and the art of war, aliens and militant forces attempting to regain control of their constituents. I recommend this book to everyone who enjoys a good tale of betrayal and death, a fresh and original alien invasion story with wonderfully written characters! Thank you so much, Jason Parent, for the opportunity to see inside your mind and experience your worlds with you for a time. <3

About the Author

In his head, Jason Parent lives in many places, but in the real world, he calls New England his home. The region offers an abundance of settings for his writing and many wonderful places in which to write them. He currently resides in Southeastern Massachusetts with his cuddly corgi named Calypso.

In a prior life, Jason spent most of his time in front of a judge . . . as a civil litigator. When he finally tired of Latin phrases no one knew how to pronounce and explaining to people that real lawsuits are not started, tried and finalized within the 60-minute timeframe they see on TV (it’s harassing the witness; no one throws vicious woodland creatures at them), he traded in his cheap suits for flip flops and designer stubble. The flops got repossessed the next day, and he’s back in the legal field . . . sorta. But that’s another story.

When he’s not working, Jason likes to kayak, catch a movie, travel any place that will let him enter, and play just about any sport (except that ball tied to the pole thing where you basically just whack the ball until it twists in a knot or takes somebody’s head off – he misses the appeal). And read and write, of course. He does that too sometimes.