Some of the finest science fiction of the day – preparing us for possibilities
Australian author Clayton Graham, born and raised in Stockport, near Manchester UK, earned a degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Salford attaining a Student Apprenticeship with English Electric Aviation. He moved to Victoria, Australia in 1982 and worked as an aerospace engineer, working in the field of efficient lightweight structures and watching them fly around the world. His interest in Science Fiction and where it places humankind within the universe we know and love gave entrance to his short story collections LOOKING FOR LIFE and SILENTLY IN THE NIGHT, his novel SAVING PALUDIS, and his very popular MILIJUN Series, of which ALIEN WHISPERS is the third volume.
Graham’s writing is less interested in the bizarre psychedelic manifestations of thinking beyond our galaxy and instead encouraging us to expand our concepts of what will doubtless one day be discovered. As a reminder of the inception of this series, Graham stated MILIJUN ‘is about more than an alien incursion into the Australian outback. It asks questions about our place in the universe, or multiverses (as we are now led to believe may be a possibility). The novels explore the relationship between a mother and son. How far can it be stretched before the links break? How far would a mother go to save her son? Would she be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, or undertake actions she would never have deemed possible prior to the alien incursion? Above all, Milijun explores the question what would mankind do when faced with an intelligence it cannot understand?’ As the synopsis on this volume explains: ‘A hundred years after her abduction to the alien planet Glieze, Laura Sinclair returns to Earth on a mission to find out what happened to her long-lost husband. But she finds the planet in turmoil under the oppressive regime of the authoritarian Tellurians. Humans are confined to the surface of their world and all extraterrestrial activity is forbidden. Laura is a member of an ancient organization, now led by her son, Jason, which pioneered alien collaboration. From their secretive Martian base, they must find a way to free mankind from brutal tyranny. But one dangerous man stands in their way, a man who’ll stop at nothing to achieve his domination of Earth. Weapons of mass destruction have been forbidden on the planet for a century, but something strange is happening on the moon—and alien insurgents stand ready to take advantage of the chaos. The future of humankind hangs in the balance. With her alien allies and members of Earth’s Underground, Laura must find a way to defeat both the renegade aliens and the overwhelming might of the Tellurian Empire.’
The author’s way with words and his descriptions of both place and characters in this distant and strange encounters and worlds are painted with elegance and authority. He leaves us with not a ‘what if’ attitude, but with a ‘when?’ and that is the essence of a fine science fiction author.