GRIT ENOUGH TO CHEW YOUR LEGS OFF

Aliens and humans try to find ways to combat evil spirits who are possessing people on Earth in this debut cross-genre novel.

Earth may be in danger from an influx of lost spirits. These spirits have for eons possessed people throughout galaxies and left behind diminished populations. If Earth is at risk, then so is its neighboring planet Merconiun. It’s the job of one Merconian, whose Earth name is Al, to determine if there’s a legitimate threat. Luckily, he has a new friend and human consultant: American retiree Lee Priest, who figured out on his own that Al was an alien. Lee recruits old colleagues to form the Bureau of Paranormal and Unexplained Phenomenon. Their tasks include somehow communicating with the evil spirits and decoding the entities’ cryptic “Dark Manifesto.” But the most critical factor, it seems, is “grit.” Apparently, earthlings are susceptible to possession because most don’t have enough grit, which Lee defines as “personal resilience when faced with adversity.” Boosting everyone’s resilience could be just the weapon the bureau needs against the spirits. The team has a limited time to discover how to increase grit en masse; otherwise, the Merconians may take drastic action to ensure Earth is no longer a danger. Brown wisely simplifies his engaging plot; there’s little information on other planets, and despite a global concern, the bureau focuses its grit-building on the United States. The dialogue-laden, unhurried tale explicitly blasts both progressives and conservatives. But liberals face the most criticism; for example, they discourage academic competition, which results in students with “the spines of snails.” Some mysteries give the story panache, from relevant worldwide cases of spontaneous combustion to an unknown spirit residing in an old painting. The absorbing book is topical as well; characters derive ideas on enhancing grit from the world’s initial reaction to Covid-19. The final scene, which zeroes in on one individual, makes a sublime coda.

A leisurely paced but engrossing tale with equal measures of SF and politics.