Human by Choice

First, I love the book and the concept. It was well written, and the early character development was great. My only problem with the book is the further I got into it, the more the pace of the book increased. I really felt as if there were stories left to be told during the timeframe which were ignored. The three Crispies could each have had several chapters devoted to their experiences. I am looking forward to, and will read the next volume, but I hope the author is not in such a hurry to get to the end.

Thoroughly enjoyed this story. Very entertaining popcorn book, and it has real promise for a series. Not a mind twisting tale, as Asimov often wrote, but thought provoking and enjoyable.

Human By Choice (2008) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in the near future after an alien starship capsizes in the vicinity of Earth. In this novel, Kyle Leverson is a science writer living in Arkansas. He is a former warrant officer in Military Intelligence who had been retired for his combat wounds. He has lost his twin brother and his pregnant wife recently and is very depressed over these losses. Jeri is an alien from the wrecked starship. She managed to get out of the ship in a lifepod, but it also sustained damage. In this story, The lifepod fails just above the trees on Kyle's land. It knocks limbs off the trees and digs into the ground. Kyle hears the crash and goes out to investigate. As he watches, the lifepod starts to disintegrate. Kyle finds an alien within the rapidly vanishing lifepod. He drags the alien out of the craft, but its legs also begin to disintegrate. Once it is free of the pod, Kyle carries the alien within the house. Two cases follow the alien into the house. One opens and a tentacle protrudes. It starts dividing until the smallest limbs are too small to see. Two of the limb complexes cover the stumps on its legs. As the missing pieces are regenerated, the alien scans the room and looks at Kyle. He speaks his name and hears the term "Cresperian" in return. Then they discover that he had spoken his name, but the alien had replied with the species name. Along the way, he discovers that she is female and he names her "Jeri". Then Kyle introduces her to the internet. Since Jeri doesn't sleep, she reads books and accesses web sites whenever he is not available. She learns basic English within a day and becomes proficient within a week. Naturally, there are still holes in her knowledge, but she has eidetic memory and high intelligence, so she learns fast. Jeri doesn't stay alien. She has a special perceptive sense that can manipulate things at the molecular and -- with additional effort -- the atomic level. She can use this sense to control her own body and turns it into that of a human woman. This takes several weeks, so she learns other things during that time, including karate and shooting. Naturally they fall in love with each other and get married. They fool the local sheriff and even the FBI, so Kyle assumes that they can just settle into matrimony. Jeri learns a bit more about being human every day. Then the outside world come looking for an alien. They usually ignore Jeri, who is obviously just a woman. So they are often quite surprised when she takes advantage of their ignorance. This tale reinforces Kyle's thoughts about assumptions. The newcomers searching for Jeri are a surprise to him. He interrogates prisoners and finds that classified information about the aliens is being leaked by two Congressmen. Kyle starts calling in favors. Kyle is mostly atheistic and Jeri's culture has proven that God is not possible. Then something like religious belief raises its head and th

Due to a combat injury, Intel officer Kyle Leverson retired from the Army. Now a widower, he moved to a remote place in the Ozarks. When he hears a loud crash outside his home, he goes to investigate. In the middle of his garden, lies astonishingly an injured ET. Apparently the alien was hurt during a crash landing when the life pod transporting him burned up during atmospheric entry. Although hesitant, Kyle takes the wounded space traveler into his home where he tries to nurture the alien. The visitor from another planet has no chance of going home. She hopes with Kyle's mentoring and her technology to be assimilated in the Arkansas culture as a human female, Jeri. However, as she adapts, enemies want her technology and have come to the Ozarks to abduct Jeri. Kyle refuses to allow any harm come to his beloved Human by Choice. This is a super science fiction romance starring a wonderful hero and an intrepid alien who is the ultimate assimilated person. The story line is faster than the vessel Jeri flew in as the action never slows down yet the two key players the human and the alien are fully developed. Although the American government is too altruistic as the corpocracy would want the technology as much as the foreign interests crave it as economic espionage between allies is the norm, fans will appreciate this fine thriller. Harriet Klausner

This is a sci-fi book that takes many chances and could have failed on many levels, but didn't. The premise is that a retired army man has a lifeboat from a failed interstellor liner deposit an alien in his back yard. here it takes off into left field. The non humanoid alien evolves itself into a playboy playmate who then falls in love with the human. Unbelievable sounding but written in a believable manner. The story then becomes an exciting chase to round up the other suvivors while fighting off Russian Mafia, Arab terrorists, rogue CIA agents with the help of the US government. The stolid aliens are from a ancient race who respond to human society like a starving hound to a bowl of alpo. My only real complant is that it is about 50 pages too short. The final sections are rushed and would benifiet from expansion. Buy the book, don't let my inept review put you off from a good book. It is just very hard too catorgorize.