Robert Silverberg 1 hr 2 min read

Surgically disguised as an Earthman, the Darruui agent Major Abner Harris arrives on Earth to advance his people's secret invasion, and to hunt the rival aliens already hidden among us.

Robert Silverberg's 1958 novel is a taut first-contact space opera. Sharp, twisty golden-age SF. Read it for a fast-moving tale of aliens masquerading as humans in a hidden war on Earth, where an agent's loyalties are tested by the very people he came to betray, in a clever, suspenseful golden-age adventure of espionage and identity.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 2 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller