Reviews of The Grays
Publishers Weekly
Fact into fiction? In bestseller Strieber's engrossing SF thriller, which draws
heavily from Communion
(1987), the author's controversial account of his personal contact with aliens,
Danny and Katelyn Callaghan are a happily married couple oblivious that both
took a saucer ride as kids—until a UFO sighting in their Indiana town awakens
subliminal memories and excites their genius teenage son, Conner. Meanwhile,
in a secret facility in Colorado, Air Force Lt. Lauren Glass learns that the
Roswell incident really happened, and that for decades the surviving ETs have
been sharing their advanced science with us. In exchange, these "Grays"
have sought to rejuvenate their dying species by genetically manipulating human
receptacles for their DNA. But some military hard-liners see this as a betrayal
of humanity, and they launch a manhunt that brings them to Indiana and the Callaghans'
doorstep. Though Strieber's human characters are sometimes as stiff and unbelievable
as his Grays, his depiction of black ops intrigue and military espionage is
a first-rate exercise in literary paranoia. It goes without saying that his
abduction scenarios have a disturbing authenticity that even skeptical readers
will find provocative. (Aug.)
—Publishers Weekly
© 2006 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
Booklist
In 1985, Strieber, then a top horror writer, author of The
Wolfen (1978) and The
Hunger (1981), had an alien-abduction experience. The book he wrote
about it, Communion (1987),
was so successful that his output of fiction dwindled in the 1990s as he expanded
upon his biggest best-seller. Stillborn sequels to The Hunger emerged
in 2001 and 2002, but The Grays
is a quantum leap back to his fictional form, powered by his newer, nonfiction
obsessions. In it aliens--the grays--have been with humanity for a good, long
time, for excellent reasons. They've been helping humanity avoid their mistakes,
which destroyed their emotions. Now, after a several-million-years journey,
the rest of the grays, for whom those among us were pioneers with a purpose,
are nearing Earth. Measures crucial to their success have been set in motion,
most important among them, the creation of a human child of supernormal intelligence
to receive the grays' advanced knowledge. Trouble is, hints of the child's existence
had to be made to humans with authority; hence, the Roswell business. And hence,
the development of rival factions within the top-secret military operation that
guards the Roswell aliens. Strieber manages the plot built on those premises
as a breakneck race to find the child and, depending on which faction the characters
belong to, protect or destroy it. It's a terrific read, already blocked out
like a screenplay for the major movie now in the works, marred only by a few
treacly passages about the wonder of it all.
—Ray Olson, Booklist
© 2006 American Library Association. All rights reserved
People Magazine
Picks & Pans section of People Magazine's August 14th issue, page 51, calls
The Grays as a “great
read”, writing “One government faction believes aliens are trying
to save us; another thinks they want to conquer in this truly spooky sci-fi
tale from the author of Communion.”
San Antonio Express-News
08/26/2006
Book Review: Earth's destiny hangs in the balance in sci-fi thriller
Ed Conroy, Special to the Express-News
Is mankind on the verge of a fatal, global environmental collapse that can
only be halted by allying ourselves with alien beings who for centuries have
preyed upon us like wolves, while we have slept like sheep?
Are we to now find collective survival through
trusting the manipulative "grays," who have been reputedly abducting
people at will, invading our minds and stealing our DNA, not to mention bullying
the highest authorities in the U.S. into letting them have their way in total
secrecy?
Most of all, is the fate of the earth really in
the hands of a brilliant 11-year-old boy genetically engineered to receive all
the grays' knowledge?
Or, as members of the Committee for Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal might assert, is such a scenario simply
the basis of a potentially lucrative screenplay-turned-novel by a man who feels
called to speak with a prophetic voice?
One thing is certain about the latest story from
the world's most outspoken advocate for the reality of the UFO phenomenon.
Whitley Strieber says he is telling the truth,
in fiction.
Strieber happens to be the author of one of the
most successful UFO-related books of all time. His 1987 nonfiction narrative,
Communion: A True Story
recounted what he described as his abduction by intelligent nonhuman beings
in 1985 at his cabin in upstate New York.
Since then, Strieber has written several nonfiction
books about his "visitor experiences" until 1990, and new novels in
the horror genre he gainfully employed before writing Communion.
In his Web site's July 27 journal entry, Strieber
explained he struggled for years to write about his more recent experiences
with his unannounced visitors.
"I tried various approaches, and finally
decided that the best one was to repeat what I had done with 'Majestic,'
and write fact-based fiction," he wrote. "But in this case, of course,
the facts are even more fantastic than they were with the Roswell Incident."
Strieber refers to his 1989 novel based upon the
much disputed UFO-related events that reportedly took place in and around Roswell,
N.M., in 1947.
So what is now "even more fantastic"
than stories of crashed discs and recovered aliens — and yet "fact
based?"
In The
Grays, Strieber makes a rescued alien being, named Adam, a key player
in a conflict centering upon the fate of the world.
Strieber presents the world's fate as identical
with the destiny of young genius Connor Callaghan, mankind's link to the collective
gray mind.
It just so happens "Adam" escapes from
his underground bunker, leaving U.S. Air Force Col. Lauren Glass, the "empath"
who is the sole person capable of communicating with him, in mortal danger from
her own boss, Col. Mike Wilkes.
Strieber makes the corrupt Wilkes part of a super-secret
group known as The Trust that has been profitably selling information from the
"grays" to high-tech industries.
The Trust has also funded worldwide underground
complexes where a million elite people will survive what Strieber describes
as a global catastrophe of cosmic origins, similar to what destroyed the dinosaurs.
Meanwhile, at a tiny college town in the Midwest,
former alien abductees Katelyn and Dan Callaghan are struggling with career
and relationship issues plus their son Connor's precocity when a triad of "grays"
— three beings with one mind — show up on their doorstep.
They are interested in "activating"
Connor.
Strieber depicts Connor as in mortal danger from
Wilkes, who is convinced that, to save humanity, he must keep the human-alien
bridge from being built.
Strieber fans this conflict to an incendiary,
cinematic climax in which a lot of innocent people are killed or extremely traumatized
— and not mourned in the least.
It is suspense, intrigue and violence (including
the destruction of the Washington Monument and the West Wing of the White House,
plus their occupants, ala a 1950s sci-fi flick) that turn the pages in this
book.
The characters are secondary to the global-disaster-based
plot that consumes them and their motivations.
Despite his charming predictive abilities, model
train set and growing social skills, Connor Callaghan remains in the end a mystery.
No matter — Strieber would have us know a
great destiny still lies in wait for him. After all, he has the right genes.
Anyone looking for an understanding of just why
the "grays" know how to save our planet, and how an 11-year-old boy
will help them do so (why not an 11-year-old girl?) will have to wait for "The
Grays II."
Ed Conroy is a San Antonio writer and the development director at the Southwest
School of Art & Craft.
© 2006 San Antonio Express-News. All Rights reserved