ROBERT WILSON AND THE INVASION FROM WITHIN

In Ruesterholz’s SF debut, an alien spy sent to infiltrate Earth revolts and fights against the space tyrant who sent him.

It’s 2029, and tech magnate Robert Wilson has risen to prominence in government and economic circles. But Wilson isn’t the American genius inventor he seems. In fact, he is a humanlike alien named Marcus whose home world was conquered and exploited by the evil League of Planets, under ruthless dictator and warlord Anton Frozos. Marcus joined Frozos’ elite spy corps and came to Earth with a sham identity. As the son of ill-fated rebels who resisted Frozos, Marcus is actually working in secret against the empire. As Robert Wilson, he grew immensely rich from Arbor Ridge, his tech company, and secretly built a planetary defense system. In 2029, when Frozos had scheduled his takeover, Robert Wilson makes a preemptive move, emerging in public to reveal his incredible origin and unmask an international network of League of Planets collaborators and traitors, including the leaders of the U.S. and China. Overthrowing a popular American president (replaced by the female VP) and earning the complete trust of Homo sapiens is the easy part. Now Wilson and his cohorts must face an approaching alien armada. And yes, this is one of those SF yarns deploying the genre cliché that Arbor Ridge galactic-shooter video games are really recruiting tools to clandestinely train squadrons of star-fighter pilots. Ruesterholz’s narrative is akin to those stolidly retro space epics attributed to L. Ron Hubbard that seem to stand with one moon boot in tomorrow and one moon boot firmly in the 1950s, possibly even earlier. He doesn’t bloat the narrative, but when third-act breathless battles pile on, one feels a more epic heft might be warranted here. Other old-school facets: The author salutes the American spirit, God, family, business partners, and the sweet notion that an alien threat could unite Earth of the 2020s in a mighty display of cooperative fellowship. Well, it’s not called science fiction for nothing.

Old-fashioned, fast-moving, flag-waving SF pitting a straight-arrow hero against hissing, Earth-coveting baddies.