Wil McCarthy
The Fall of Sirius (1996)
Reviewed: 1996-12-26

Sequel to Aggressor Six.

Two thousand years ago, the Waister armada attacked Human space. Sirius system was the first to fall before the onslaught of the aggressors' superior fleet. The colonies were destroyed, humanity eradicated from the system. Back then Colonel Malyene Andreivne Kurosov'e was a top ranking law enforcement officer. Through a combination of luck and personal initiative, she managed to save a few people, including her two children and herself, in cryostatis.

The world Malyene now awakens in is vastly different from the one of her origins. Sirius system is called Gate, and its inhabitants are the result of an obscene transformation, effectively a crossbreed, half human, half Waister. Their self-chosen task is to buffer any future contact between the surviving humanity and the Waisters, and to establish communications with these aliens they seek to emulate.

And now, after centuries of disregard, the Waisters have returned, as incomprehensible as ever before. The Gateans' preparations prove futile, and it is up to Malyene to confront the Waisters in the name of humanity, and to find safety for her companions, her children, and herself between the looming threat of the aliens and the equally perilous and unfathomable Gatean society.

The Fall of Sirius continues in the vein of Aggressor Six, showing McCarthy's predisposition to hurried climaxes and his ongoing fascination with the transformation of humans into something different.

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