Defenders
As with Love Minus Eighty (2013), McIntosh expands another short story into a novel in this near-future military science-fiction adventure. It’s 2029 and the mind-reading capabilities of alien invaders, the Luyten, render Earth’s military forces ineffective, thus threatening humanity with extinction. Scientists create genetically modified superwarriors in a last-ditch effort to save the planet. Unfortunately, the free-thinking and military-minded Defenders may pose as great a threat as the aliens. Using alternating points of view in short chapters, McIntosh weaves the story among several characters. Among them are Oliver Bowen, CIA interrogator and the first to communicate with a captured Luyten; Khai Zhou, saved by the same alien and another child of the invasion; Lila Easterlin, who dreams of becoming a genetic engineer and adores the defenders for saving her. Hard-science sf readers will be disappointed in the simple treatment of technology and the standard invasion trope, but McIntosh’s strengths lie in character interaction and effective dialogue, and he succeeds in creating an emotional story of love, loyalty, and forgiveness amid the stark realities of war. --Craig Clark