A great
misfortune has befallen Earth; life as humanity once knew it has changed. And with the Great Destruction came the alien
inhabitants from Venus. Stealthily
these aliens have begun their conquest of Earth, using telepathy to make the women of the
planet willing slaves to their everywhim. Their
attack is so skillful that not one person on Earth suspects that humanity is about to be
exterminated forever – except for Glyneth.
Glyneth
is a young woman living in one of the more primitive villages left after the Great
Destruction. She lives as an outcast
among her own kind, an orphan after her mother was stolen from the village by the
Outsiders. Glyneth is a bastard, the
result of the rape of her mother by one of those same hated barbarians. If that weren’t enough, Glyneth has
mysterious abilities that no other villager possesses – she can hear the voice of the
Earth, and it is crying out in warning.
Glyneth
also knows that any day the heinous Outsiders will make their customary visit again, and
steal away more young women from the village. She
has vowed that, no matter what, she will not suffer the same fate as her mother.
Lucas
Jefferson is a warrior, and one of the ten sons of Canusa.
His position is one of importance, which makes him wonder exactly why he has
been sent on the trivial mission to gather the unwilling females from a distant village so
that they can be used as breeding stock. He
does not need a fertile woman for himself, as he is already betrothed to a young woman who
has been tested and pronounced fit for breeding an heir.
So why then has he been sent to steal women from this distant village? And why, when the time comes to take the women,
does he feel drawn to the scarred hag instead of the nubile young mother that he first
selects?
Glyneth
tries her best to escape Lucas after she is taken-- before he can discover that she is not
the ugly crone her appearance suggests - but to no avail.
Lucas is a warrior, and failure is not an option that he will consider.
Glyneth
soon discovers that she has more to fear than just being abducted. Together she and Lucas must face assassins,
uncover long-buried secrets and defeat the invading Venusians – all before human life
is completely exterminated on Earth.
I found
Susanne Marie Knight’s Alien Heat to be
very imaginative. Knight’s plot is like
no other I’ve ever read, which is really saying a lot considering that I deem reading
the ultimate pastime. The villainous aliens
in Alien Heat come in an unexpected form, and
the vastness of the futuristic detail was mind-boggling.
All in
all, Knight’s story proved an enjoyable read, though, at the end, I found myself
wishing that she had developed her highly original storyline more. I also thought her characters could have used a
bit more depth, but other than that, Knight’s Alien
Heat was very entertaining.
Reviewed
by Janean Nusz for The Road to Romance
December
5, 2003 |
