Cold Allies

This author is definitely basing this more on truth than fiction. Writing it as fiction allows one to not have to defend what is.

For a long time, Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" was considered by and large to be the best mass-market speculative fiction about World War III. Then in 1994, Eric Harry wrote his magnificent "Arc Light," which I went on CNN.com to call the best Cold War novel ever, about accidental war between the U. S. and Russia. What these two authors had in common, though, was not necessarily Russo-phobia. Rather, they were limited to envisioning World War III between the U. S. and another nuclear power capable of destroying the world. It did not occur to them that the U. S. and Europe might fight World War III against a bunch of little countries united by religion, language, and simple, implacable revulsion towards the modern world. It occured instead to Patricia Anthony. And to think that when I first read this book (before the first paperback edition had been printed), I telephoned Ms. Anthony to chide her for making U. S. tanks too easy to kill in her book. Even if the factor unifying the Arabs in her book is food insecurity (as a result of global warming making their already arid homelands more or less uninhabitable), she did come up with what wound up being the most accurate prediction of World War III. And by saying that, of course, I do stick my neck out a ways. All right, I admit that AS OF THIS WRITING, we aren't fighting all the Arab countries. The key words in that statement are capitalized. And I also admit that aliens may never have visited here, or even if they have, may think our predicament so hopeless or our problem-solving abilities so pathetic that they would consider us not worth the effort of saving. Having the good ol' world restored by Mr. Blue for the price of two permanently abducted service members is just a bit intellectually dishonest, and the scene where SACEUR is taken in by a human "psychic" is ludicrous. For her part, Anthony attempts to restore the Victorian consensus that God (wearing the guise of a mysterious alien probe/organism) is clearly interested in human progress. Her thinking about how technology would transform war, however, is visionary even if not capable of being fully realized in a scant eight years. Never fear - the war will last longer than that, though perhaps not quite long enough for everybody's croplands to dry up on their own.

This is the second Patricia Anthony novel I've read, the first being "Brother Termite". Both novels delve into the UFO arena, with "Cold Allies" touching a upon abductions and mutilations."Cold Allies" takes place in the not too distant future and shows us a world at war over the Earth's dwindling recources, but fighting it with conventional weaponry (sometimes using technologically advanced weapons, sometimes using World War I mentality). Throughout this conflict, the enigmatic aliens often appear over the battle fields, their purpose unknown.Like the unfathonable cattle mutilations and human abductions that are replete in UFOlogy, along with the "Foo-fighter" lore of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Anthony uses these phenomena to draw in the reader, and true to the UFO mystery itself, she gives no answers as to why, nor to what purpose the aliens may have in abducting and/or mutilating the human victims. The reader is left wondering (as was intended), are the aliens allies or are they dispassionate creatures putting us under their microscope?"Cold Allies" is a fast read (I found it hard to put down), and like "Brother Termite", is a well thought out character-driven novel. If you think UFO's are all hogwash or have not looked into this phenomenon, then I doubt that this novel is for you. However, if you have more than just a passing interest in UFOlogy, you should really enjoy this novel. Between 1 and 10, "Cold Allies" gets a solid 8.

It's sometime in the 21st century, and humanity is in trouble. Runaway greenhouse effect has ravaged the world, sending starving Arab armies into the heart of Europe while the United States faces chaos as the breadbasket dries up and blows away. Against this background appear the Blue Woofers: mysterious lights that may or may not be alien visitors. They're thoroughly inscrutable, but they do seem to be interested in observing human beings under conditions of extreme stress... This is a very solid first novel, with alien aliens, well-crafted battle scenes, and taut psychological suspense. I do have some quibbles (some of the subplots are really extraneous) but overall this is well worth a look

It's sometime in the 21st century, and humanity is in trouble. Runaway greenhouse effect has ravaged the world, sending starving Arab armies into the heart of Europe while the United States faces chaos as the breadbasket dries up and blows away. Against this background appear the Blue Woofers... mysterious lights that may or may not be alien visitors. They're thoroughly inscrutable, but they do seem to be interested in observing human beings under conditions of extreme stress... This is a very solid first novel, with alien aliens, well-crafted battle scenes, and taut psychological suspense. I do have some quibbles (some of the subplots are really extraneous) but overall this is well worth a look