Cavalcade

by Alison Sinclair

Just as the aliens promised, a ship has landed and taken away those who took up their invitation to a new, better life. But when the pioneers wake aboard the vessel there is no welcoming committee to be seen. All the watches have stopped, except for one old-fashioned pocket watch which reveals two and a quarter hours have passed unawares.

And then a scream rends the air: a pacemaker has stopped and there's nothing anyone can do to restart the ailing heart. When the US Special Forces squad radio also malfunctions, it's clear that something on board the alien ship is decommissioning everything electronic, no matter how mundane.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

299 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Alison Sinclair is a science fiction and fantasy author.

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating idea, a giant spaceship offers a ride to anyone who wants to come. Be on a seashore at a given time, and you come along for the ride. A lot of people take the spaceship up on the offer, for a lot of reasons. The beginning of the working out of all their combined stories is the novel. The title is perfectly chosen. In a way, it's similar to the recent movie, "The Way".

One passing observation of Sinclair's stuck with me. The measure of our sins is the totality of the pain they cause others. That's a non-obvious criterion, but it seems right, somehow. Kill someone and you cause them great pain for a short time, but you also cause longer-lasting, less-intense pain to all the other people you involve, their family, your family, the EMTs, the police, the judge, jury & prosecuters, if it comes to that. That idea alone was worth the read.

[Andrew Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really intriguing book.

[Jo Walton]

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/09/wher...

[Arlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific book.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

After aliens offer to take any interested humans in their spacecraft, a group of people from Earth find that things are not what they expected.

I would give this book five stars for ideas. I loved the 'would you accept that offer?' beginning as the first page has the people already on the spacecraft. It jumped right to confusion and fear as they realize all their electronics are disintegrating including pacemakers. Then you have to deal with food and water and shelter - all fascinating to explore especially because the aliens are not communicating in any way.

I was surprised to realize about a hundred pages in that I wasn't really enjoying the book. I just didn't attach to any of the characters enough to get pulled in. I still think this is a good book and I respect what the author was doing but I wish she'd stayed focused more on ideas and less on social and political squabbles.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Couldn't sustain interest.

[Eric Lawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this scifi novel, thousands of people volunteer to join an alien space craft as it travels past the earth, en route to places unknown. The passengers must learn how to interact with the ship and each other, in order to get food and other essential supplies.
Slightly more of the main characters are women, and women's perspectives such as dealing with male violence are given suitable prominence.
Several of the characters are scientists, male and female in equal proportion and skill level, and the book deals with the interplay of scientific method and knowledge with the human skills needed to organise a new society from scratch, or at least from small groups andisolated individuals, who have many different ideas on how things should be organised.
The writing is fairly plain but I always found myself wanting to know what happens next. Recommended.
AIthough the underlying theme is space travel, the science is not related to that. Mostly the small-scale physics, chemistry, biology (including medicine) and social sciences needed for survival in a strange environment.

[Jenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this book--what if instead of abducting people, the aliens asked for volunteers? Would you go? I think I would go.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent writing, with a really cool twist on the "First Contact" theme...but is ultimately bogged down by a really slow pace with few developed characters.