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Deadly Silents
WHO WAS THE COP KILLER?
A SILENT?
Their anger launched the crime wave that brought the Terrans to Egar. Could one of them be ruthless enough to want the police out of the way -- permanently?
A NORMAL?
The telepathic aliens seemed friendly enough -- but psychotics could fake innocence. And if their culture permitted a murderous conspiracy -- how were the humans to know?
A TERRAN?
Faced with culture shock on a strange world -- their innermost thoughts open to the mind-readers -- fears and pressures mounted. Had one of their own gone mad?
As the cops tried to solve the mystery, somewhere the assassin waited...
A SILENT?
Their anger launched the crime wave that brought the Terrans to Egar. Could one of them be ruthless enough to want the police out of the way -- permanently?
A NORMAL?
The telepathic aliens seemed friendly enough -- but psychotics could fake innocence. And if their culture permitted a murderous conspiracy -- how were the humans to know?
A TERRAN?
Faced with culture shock on a strange world -- their innermost thoughts open to the mind-readers -- fears and pressures mounted. Had one of their own gone mad?
As the cops tried to solve the mystery, somewhere the assassin waited...
245 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
33 people want to read
About the author
Lee Killough
52 books15 followersLee Killough has been storytelling since the age of four or five, when she began making up her own bedtime stories. So when she discovered science fiction and mysteries about age eleven, she began writing her own science fiction and mysteries. Because her great fear was running out of these by reading everything her small hometown library had. It took her late husband Pat Killough, though, years later, to convince her to try selling her work. Her first published stories were science fiction and her short story, "Symphony For a Lost Traveler", earned a Hugo Award nomination in 1985.
She used to joke that she wrote SF because she dealt with non-humans every day...spending twenty-seven years as chief technologist in the Radiology Department at Kansas State University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital before retiring to write full-time.
Because she loves both SF and mysteries and hated choose between the two genres, her work combines them. Except for one fantasy, The Leopard’s Daughter, most of her novels are mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference for supernatural detectives: vampire, werewolves, even a ghost. She has set her procedurals in the future, on alien words, and in the country of dark fantasy. Her best known detective is vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian, of Blood Hunt, Bloodlinks, and Blood Games. Five of her novels and a novella are now available as e-books and she is editing more to turn into e-books.
Lee makes her home in Manhattan, Kansas, with her book-dealer husband Denny Riordan, a spunky terrier mix, and a house crammed with books.
She used to joke that she wrote SF because she dealt with non-humans every day...spending twenty-seven years as chief technologist in the Radiology Department at Kansas State University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital before retiring to write full-time.
Because she loves both SF and mysteries and hated choose between the two genres, her work combines them. Except for one fantasy, The Leopard’s Daughter, most of her novels are mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference for supernatural detectives: vampire, werewolves, even a ghost. She has set her procedurals in the future, on alien words, and in the country of dark fantasy. Her best known detective is vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian, of Blood Hunt, Bloodlinks, and Blood Games. Five of her novels and a novella are now available as e-books and she is editing more to turn into e-books.
Lee makes her home in Manhattan, Kansas, with her book-dealer husband Denny Riordan, a spunky terrier mix, and a house crammed with books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 6, 2011
30 years later, this book is barely a faint footnote in SF history. Apparently it's only been printed once. It's the third novel by Lee Killough, who is relatively unknown to all but a few SF readers.
So does that mean it's not a good book? No, actually, it's pretty good, and deserves a wider audience.
So what went wrong? It had a decent publisher (Del Rey books), and the cover artwork seems fine for the time. It was reviewed in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and a couple other places, also).
The author deserves recognition for making the effort to create aliens (the Iregara, from the planet Egar) that are very alien. That is, they're not just furry versions of humans. She takes great pains in making clear just how different every little thing is when you're dealing with alien cultures. That alone should have made this book worthy of more attention.
Hmmm... but what didn't work in this book? The pace was a bit off. The plot didn't really pick up until the last 100 pages, as the author spent so much time giving background details to make the alien world come alive. That could have been improved, as it made the book a little less compelling.
Also, the book is largely a mystery. And sorry, but I was able to pinpoint the guilty party in the whodunit right at the outset when the plot was being made clear. I was actually hoping for a dramatic twist at the end, and the author did try to dangle at least a half dozen red herrings, but the villain at the end was just as I suspected.
You know how sometimes you can describe a book as one that you just can't put down? Sorry, that didn't happen here. I felt a bit disconnected as I was reading, but perhaps that was due to the pacing that I referred to earlier.
The strengths of this novel are the world-building, and the time spent to getting the alien details truly alien. And as such, it is worth a look. I will definitely look for more of the author's SF output to read.
Recommended to SF fans who like their aliens a bit more offbeat than your typical Star Trek episode provides.
So does that mean it's not a good book? No, actually, it's pretty good, and deserves a wider audience.
So what went wrong? It had a decent publisher (Del Rey books), and the cover artwork seems fine for the time. It was reviewed in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and a couple other places, also).
The author deserves recognition for making the effort to create aliens (the Iregara, from the planet Egar) that are very alien. That is, they're not just furry versions of humans. She takes great pains in making clear just how different every little thing is when you're dealing with alien cultures. That alone should have made this book worthy of more attention.
Hmmm... but what didn't work in this book? The pace was a bit off. The plot didn't really pick up until the last 100 pages, as the author spent so much time giving background details to make the alien world come alive. That could have been improved, as it made the book a little less compelling.
Also, the book is largely a mystery. And sorry, but I was able to pinpoint the guilty party in the whodunit right at the outset when the plot was being made clear. I was actually hoping for a dramatic twist at the end, and the author did try to dangle at least a half dozen red herrings, but the villain at the end was just as I suspected.
You know how sometimes you can describe a book as one that you just can't put down? Sorry, that didn't happen here. I felt a bit disconnected as I was reading, but perhaps that was due to the pacing that I referred to earlier.
The strengths of this novel are the world-building, and the time spent to getting the alien details truly alien. And as such, it is worth a look. I will definitely look for more of the author's SF output to read.
Recommended to SF fans who like their aliens a bit more offbeat than your typical Star Trek episode provides.
December 30, 2021
When the Egar, a telepathic race, landed in a terran city it mindblasted them turning them into Silents. And all their descendants would be Silents too - without telepathic abilities. This has led to a growing number of Silent families back on Egar and frustration leading to violence between Silents and Normals. Egar requests a team of Earth law enforcement officers to teach the Egars how to police the growing vandalism and violence in their society, which up till now has had little crime. This ignites a series of cop killings and the suspicions fall on a variety of suspects: angry Silents who blame humans for their condition, rare deviant Normals who can believe a fantasy life, and even an inside job - a cop. Lee Killough has given us a surprisingly gripping alien police procedural with intriguing characters, backgrounds and plot twists. It will keep you guessing right to the exciting denouement and I can guarantee enjoyment. RECOMMENDED.
August 8, 2018
A stand-alone science fiction mystery.
This book in set in another world, Egara, which was originally habited by a telepathic sentient species, the Iregara. However, when Iregara sent a group of their own people to Earth, as a peaceful embassy, the telepaths were suddenly in contact with thousands of human minds and they burnt out. They became Silent, not able to send or receive telepathy. Their children were also Silent. Because the Iregara culture assumes that everyone is telepathic, the Silents have a lot of trouble and aren’t able to blend in. Indeed, even the jobs they can have are quite limited. A small group of humans have moved to Egara, as well.
Reluctantly, the Iregara have realized that they need a police force in Egara. They’ve never before needed such people and so they turn to humans. They set up a small police force, Conservators of Peace or cops, to start with, 300 cops for 300 000 people. The new police force’s results are also strictly monitored and some Iregara aren’t happy that more humans are in the world and in such visible position.
Ten Kampachalas is one of the new recruits from Earth. He’s been a leo, a law enforcement officer, for five years and is eager to get to know the new world and its habitants. However, in this time, leos on Earth must provide protection for citizens in cities which resemble warzones (some of the citizens apparently fight the leos), so the Iregara way of life is very different to him and all the other new cops. While the cops are expected to solve crimes, they’re mostly expected to act as mediators to keep the peace and to sooth the people against whom a crime has been committed.
Another new aspect is the telepathy, of course. The Iregara can’t turn it off nor use it selectively. They use it all the time on everyone. Even their languages are mostly verbs and nouns designed to arouse emotions and thoughts which the others’ can pick up and understand what it meant. This is, of course, a very challenging to the humans and to the Silents. However, Ten does his best to cope.
The other, more minor, view point character is Director Devane Brooks. In addition to getting the new department going in a new culture and on a new planet, he has a young son and a wife who only came to Egara because of Devane’s career. She’s humiliated and annoyed that the Iregara can read her every thought.
Someone starts to kill the cops. Ten and the other cops must find the killer as quickly as possible.
The book is focused on exploring the telepathic culture and on the culture clash between the humans and the Iregara. It’s not a fast-paced book but I enjoyed the new culture a lot and found the book very interesting. The world-building was much more intriguing than the plot or the characters. The Iregara are bipedal sentients and while they aren’t completely incomprehensible, they’re far more alien than most aliens.
This book in set in another world, Egara, which was originally habited by a telepathic sentient species, the Iregara. However, when Iregara sent a group of their own people to Earth, as a peaceful embassy, the telepaths were suddenly in contact with thousands of human minds and they burnt out. They became Silent, not able to send or receive telepathy. Their children were also Silent. Because the Iregara culture assumes that everyone is telepathic, the Silents have a lot of trouble and aren’t able to blend in. Indeed, even the jobs they can have are quite limited. A small group of humans have moved to Egara, as well.
Reluctantly, the Iregara have realized that they need a police force in Egara. They’ve never before needed such people and so they turn to humans. They set up a small police force, Conservators of Peace or cops, to start with, 300 cops for 300 000 people. The new police force’s results are also strictly monitored and some Iregara aren’t happy that more humans are in the world and in such visible position.
Ten Kampachalas is one of the new recruits from Earth. He’s been a leo, a law enforcement officer, for five years and is eager to get to know the new world and its habitants. However, in this time, leos on Earth must provide protection for citizens in cities which resemble warzones (some of the citizens apparently fight the leos), so the Iregara way of life is very different to him and all the other new cops. While the cops are expected to solve crimes, they’re mostly expected to act as mediators to keep the peace and to sooth the people against whom a crime has been committed.
Another new aspect is the telepathy, of course. The Iregara can’t turn it off nor use it selectively. They use it all the time on everyone. Even their languages are mostly verbs and nouns designed to arouse emotions and thoughts which the others’ can pick up and understand what it meant. This is, of course, a very challenging to the humans and to the Silents. However, Ten does his best to cope.
The other, more minor, view point character is Director Devane Brooks. In addition to getting the new department going in a new culture and on a new planet, he has a young son and a wife who only came to Egara because of Devane’s career. She’s humiliated and annoyed that the Iregara can read her every thought.
Someone starts to kill the cops. Ten and the other cops must find the killer as quickly as possible.
The book is focused on exploring the telepathic culture and on the culture clash between the humans and the Iregara. It’s not a fast-paced book but I enjoyed the new culture a lot and found the book very interesting. The world-building was much more intriguing than the plot or the characters. The Iregara are bipedal sentients and while they aren’t completely incomprehensible, they’re far more alien than most aliens.
June 21, 2018
4 stars. This is a good, old-fashioned alien planet police force romp, with a side of telepathy thrown in. It's an easy read and an intriguing concept that I think Killough does a good job exploring. I wish more of the characters were a little better rounded out; some feel so sketched in that they don't add much. I also wish there had been a little more exploration of the guilty party's actual rationale and motivation. But all in all I liked this one.
April 8, 2021
Classic sci-fi mystery about a group of C.O.P.s (Corps of Peacekeepers) on an alien planet, partly damaged at the hands of humans. I really enjoyed the unique aliens and the unique approach to the implications of telepathy.
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December 5, 20141984 grade A-
2004 grade A-
Series book JB1
2004 grade A-
Series book JB1
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews