Defenders

by Will McIntosh

Overview

A new epic of alien invasion and human resistance by Hugo Award-winning author Will McIntosh.

The invaders came to claim earth as their own, overwhelming us with superior weapons and the ability to read our minds like open books.

Our only chance for survival was to engineer a new race of perfect soldiers to combat them. Seventeen feet tall, knowing and loving nothing but war, their minds closed to the aliens.

But these saviors could never be our servants. And what is done cannot be undone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316217767
Publisher:	Orbit
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Will McIntosh is a Hugo award winner and Nebula finalist whose short stories have appeared in Asimov's (where he won the 2010 Reader's Award for short story), Strange Horizons, Interzone, and Science Fiction and Fantasy: Best of the Year, among others. His first novel, Soft Apocalypse, was released in 2011 from Night Shade Books, and his second novel, Hitchers, was released in February, 2012. In 2008 he became the father of twins.

Editorial Reviews

03/03/2014
This military science fiction novel offers fast paced action but little depth or originality. In 2029, humankind is faced with extinction as the alien Luyten fall from the sky to take the Earth for their own. The self-assured Luyten, utterly convinced of their need to exterminate a lesser civilization, enjoy a significant technological advantage and are telepathic as well; every strategy and countermeasure humans think of will be betrayed as soon as a Luyten happens into mind-reading range. Humanity’s one hope is the Defenders, giants immune to telepathy and genetically engineered for war. But an entire race of militants for whom the concept of peace is meaningless may prove as great a threat to humans as they do to the aliens. Comparative brevity and a multi-decade span of events limit opportunities to fully develop characters, making them hard to identify or sympathize with. Similarly, the unfolding series of crises offers less the lamentable inevitability of history and more the tedium of reruns. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Company. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"McIntosh is without a doubt one of the most underrated science fiction authors writing today. Defenders is an emotional, action-packed story....McIntosh's cautionary near-future tale, told from multiple perspectives, serves as a brutally honest portrayal of how humans carelessly exploit, destroy - and in this case create - other species."—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)

"What makes Defenders such an incredible novel is McIntosh's pure elegance, the beauty of its simplicity. Each element of the novel, the characters, the situations, the world, the results of the world's actions, organically feed into each other as the novel progresses."—SFFWorld

"This military science fiction novel offers fast paced action."—Publishers Weekly

"McIntosh's novels often blend unlikely scenarios and genre tropes in ways that make you rethink them. Here he's brought together the classic veterans' "coming home" story with telepathic alien invasion and issues around what it means to have been genetically engineered for one purpose. It's a posthuman scenario that McIntosh is exploring in all its messy complexity."— io9.com

"McIntosh tells a more global yet still deeply personal tale about life during wartime and its aftermath... McIntosh has his finger on the pulse, again."—Kirkus (starred review)

"An emotional story of love, loyalty, and forgiveness amid the stark realities of war."—Booklist

From the Publisher

"Credible, compelling, and relentless ...the best and most disturbing moments will stay with the reader for a long time."

on Soft Apocalypse Locus

"Grimly plausible... this SF romance is a fine piece of work."

SFX on Love Minus Eighty

"More people should be reading Will McIntosh."

Tor.com

"How do we keep on connecting in our ever-growing maze of social technologies? How can love succeed in the techno-surround we've trapped ourselves in? These are the questions Will McIntosh explores in this tightly plotted tangle of love stories. The stirring result casts a clear and knowing eye on our current society, from the best viewpoint of all: the future."

New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson on Love Minus Eighty

"Love Minus Eighty is a book that makes me envious as a writer: a clever premise, brilliantly executed. More importantly, though, it's a book that thrilled and delighted me as a reader, chilling and touching at the same time, a great story that stimulates the mind, the heart and the nerves."

Charles Yu

★ 2014-05-07
Abandoning the domestic sphere he explored so aptly in Love Minus Eighty (2013), McIntosh tells a more global yet still deeply personal tale about life during wartime and its aftermath.In 2029, the telepathic, starfish-shaped Luyten have just about conquered Earth—it's tough to fight an enemy who knows everything you're about to do. Pushed to the brink, humanity develops the defenders: brilliant, 16-foot tall, three-legged soldiers impervious to telepathy. But once the Luyten are defeated, there are millions of defenders who are ill-suited to anything other than war and who are in a position to demand whatever they want from the weaker humans. The larger picture is primarily filtered through the perspectives of Kai, an orphan who inadvertently befriends Five, a wounded Luyten later captured by the U.S. government; Oliver, Kai's eventual adoptive father, a socially awkward CIA operative who interrogates and becomes unduly influenced by Five; and Lila, Kai's future wife, a clever, scientifically inclined young woman. As in his other work, McIntosh builds a believable universe with well-thought-out social dynamics—although the beginning of the novel does jump about in time somewhat confusingly. The genetically engineered soldier who can't adapt to peacetime is a frequent figure in sci-fi, but most previous examples of the trope haven't considered the implications quite so carefully. And, of course, the novel's sharp commentary on the difficulties soldiers have fitting into civilian society after their service—and the struggles of civilians both during and after war—has a sadly contemporary relevance. There's also a fascinating take on how political alliances shift over time: One's bosom friend today can be one's deadly enemy tomorrow, and vice versa.McIntosh has his finger on the pulse, again.

Kirkus Reviews