Xan

by Patrick Tilley

When the Williams family pulls into the township of Gainsville, Kansas, to look up an old friend they quickly find themselves imprisoned in a nightmare scenario as US government forces throw a security cordon around the area. Something else has arrived in Gainsville. XAN-Ubara-Q'han, Surveyor-General of the Ninth Swarm has landed....

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror

332 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1986

Reviews

[Francisco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did you ever read a book that you were quite enjoying and then, near the end of it (page 274 of 331) you get a really awful bit and you can't read the book with the same eyes or remember it in the same way? Well this happened in this book. We'll come to that.

The story is standard alien abduction/invasion horror stuff, kids are disappearing, taken by aliens who are in the process of invading earth. The whole thing is set in Kansas and there is a Close Encounters of the Third Kind style cordon around the affected area and the family we are following cannot exit the place. The story is fun for what it is, even if the characters seem too unfazed by what is happening to them, acting too normally for people who just lost their kids to an unknown power.

The whole thing is very white, a white family in white Kansas... until we meet a marine on page 274, the only character of colour in the book and oh man it's horrible. We get his perspective on guarding a prisoner woman and it's all about wanting to have sex with/rape a "white woman", when he speaks he does so in a horrible stereotyped way that would have seemed racist in 1906, much less 1986 and he gets dispatched by said white woman in quick order. That really tainted what had until then been a run-of-the-mill but quite entertaining book into an icky experience. And then the book just gets worse after that, the writer clearly wanted to wrap up and did it by just killing everyone you came to care about in a way that leave no time to feel their loss, just gone. So... yeah can't recommend this, that's what you get with random buys.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

My quest to read all of Patrick Tilley’s work has certainly hit a low point. This is a very white male 80’s book (so no surprises there) that starts with a bit of sf/horror and then just goes nowhere for a while. Lots of middle aged white men talking, women being a bit emotional / difficult. All a bit Tom Clancy really, and not in a good way.

Then it all starts to go wrong, for the plot, the characters, and the reader in the last 80 pages. Topped off with a bit of racism that had no reason to be there at all. Second star for being easy enough to rip through at speed. Basically a poorly written airport novel.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad that's over.

[Sue in NZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread this now after remembering being hooked in the late 1980s. It didn't disappoint. Really good old style horror with a truly alien creature at the heart of it. The action gets going quickly and although some of the dialogue seems slightly dated, you cannot escape being drawn into it - and as you get near the end, it is as I remember: there is no way you can put the book down until it is finished!

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While undisputably resembling a B-grade alien horror movie in novel form, Xan nonetheless manages to convey a genuine sense of terror and nihilism throughout, as the utterly lethal titular extraterrestrial destroys those unfortunate enough to cross its path. The fact that Xan - a being of almost unimaginable power and intelligence - isn't actively hostile towards humanity, but views the lives of humans as simply irrelevant (or, at worst, a slight inconvenience) to its own machinations gives the alien an almost Lovecraftian feel. An engrossing and extremely bleak novel.

[Invader Xan · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know those books where you like the characters less and less as the story progresses? That's how I felt about this book. It seems like even the author got fed up with them by the end...