Empires: Extraction

“This groundbreaking collaboration between two Gollancz authors tells of the invasion of Earth by two different alien races – at the same time. Two men become aware of the threat, and must work to sabotage the invasion plans and see off the aliens. Each book follows one hero, uncovering the threat to humanity and the world from their point of view. Each book can be read on its own, and will give the reader a complete, kinetic, fast-paced military SF story. But read both books and the reader gets something else – another view of (some of) the same events and crossover points, culminating in [redacted, but the cover might be a clue]. The two books can be read in any order, but together they tell the story of humanity caught in the crossfire between two deadly alien races, who have made Earth their battleground…”

So there’s the blurb from the publisher about what Gav (Gavin Smith) and I were trying to do with these two books.

“Two alien races have fought a long and bitter war among the stars. And now their conflict has bought them to our world, and the end of humanity is nigh. We have something they want, something which can’t be found anywhere else in the universe. Neither side can afford to show their hand too early and attract the attention of their enemies, but their plans are in place and their agents are at work. When two men – a soldier and a policeman – stumble into the alien plots, their investigations will lead them to the aliens and, eventually, to each other. And to war.”

And there’s another. I think that about covers it. Speaking of covers…

Hopefully it’s clear enough that these two novels are joined at the hip. Gavin wrote Infiltration and also a couple of short scenes  in Extraction.

The opening chapter of Extraction is here.