Infall by Herb Hughes (Signed Copy)
Local Madison author!
Author Herb Hughes, an Alabama native, worked in the computer industry for over two decades before leaving to create a successful private business. Prior publications include four nonfiction books, numerous articles in national periodicals, and four short stories. He later sold his business to focus on writing novels. Killing Rhinos is his third novel. His first, Tennessee Yankee, is a historical novel set during and immediately after the civil war. His second, The Joystick Murders, is future fiction about Master Detective Drake Blast in the year 2042.
What would you do if a naked alien materialized in front of you amid a ball of swirling winds and colored lights? Would you freeze, run away, scream, hit it, or try to communicate?
And what would you think if you discovered these aliens not only come from a different universe but are also far more intelligent than humans and vastly superior technologically?
Martin O’Brien leaves his native Ireland to chase the dream of love, but things go awry. Before he can return home, he becomes involved with the sudden appearance of aliens. This strange anomaly begins with a few “lightshows,” as the press dubs them, but quickly becomes a flood of millions.
Martin meets Jennifer Daniels, a pregnant young lady struggling to deal with her alcoholism. Together, they treat, harbor, and befriend a wounded alien named Vanya, but their kindness puts them at risk of being arrested.
Lucas Taylor, a has-been golf pro who lives as a recluse in the Australian outback, captures Dontin, the first Embrian to arrive on Earth. Lucas puts Dontin to work in his failing opal mine, only to have everything go terribly wrong in a matter of days.
United States President Alex Duncan and his cabinet degenerate into arguing and fighting when they cannot agree on a sensible approach to handling the expanding problem. To further complicate matters, a recession is deepening, and the presidential election looms ahead.
Human reactions to the aliens, who call themselves Embrians, range from murdering them for sport to using them for slave labor to worshipping them as gods. Docile and cooperative, they are herded like sheep into concentration camps. For their captors, they are no trouble at all. In the beginning. But when they prove to be far more intelligent and far more advanced than humans, conflict arises.
Vahlion, the Embrian leader, threatens to conquer America if his demands are not met. Because Embrians are so advanced, the threat is more than real. It is a certainty!
Infall turns into a fight for the survival of the human race. Martin, Jennifer, Vanya, Lucas, and Dontin, along with the United States government, are on a mission to save Earth, but how do you fight against aliens who have mastered entire fields of science that humans did not even know existed?
Will the Earth remain a human world, or will it belong to the Embrians, leaving humans defeated and enslaved?
If you like science fiction that looks at everyday life, that is realistic and could happen in our world today or tomorrow, and that could appear as “Breaking News” on your television at any moment, you will enjoy Infall, the first book in the Edge of Entropy Trilogy.