This could have been a really good historical fiction book about a young slave (he doesn't have a name, just a number "47") who meets a runaway slave and stands up to his master. Then reality gets bent a bit, and we find out that the runaway slave is actually an alien from outer space who has special powers that he uses to help 47 escape. This type of genre is magical realism, and I have to admit it's just not my thing. Give me full-on fantasy or straight fiction, but please don't mix the two. Mosley does a wonderful job of capturing the fear and degradation that slaves felt, and I would have been happy if he had stuck with that. This was my first eBook -- I read this on a Nook and loved the experience!