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Sauron #1
DeathDay
On Black Friday, the aliens attacked. The human race was enslaved. But soon, everything will change.
368 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 3, 2001
23 people are currently reading
233 people want to read
About the author
William C. Dietz
126 books455 followersNew York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz has published more than fifty novels, some of which have been translated into German, Russian, and Japanese. He grew up in the Seattle area, served as a medic with the Navy and Marine Corps, graduated from the University of Washington, and has been employed as a surgical technician, college instructor, and television news writer, director and producer. Before becoming a full-time writer Dietz was director of public relations and marketing for an international telephone company. He and his wife live near Gig Harbor, Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 17, 2015
Look, I've read books by Distz that I like greatly...
This ain't one.
Just so you know this book is really nothing but a long screed on racism. If we humans can be racist why then aliens can also be racist. Thus we take an idea that has often worked and made a good story (aliens invade Earth etc.) and we use it to build a book about racist problems, racist bigots, racist beliefs etc., etc., etc.
I don't really need a science fiction book to tell me racism is bad, stupid and so on. if you do need that...well, here's your book. Just be prepared to put up with the idiotic monologues/dialogue of the racists in the book (human and otherwise).
Not a novel I liked, and I've pretty much seen the unpleasantness of real life I don't need lessons on decency in my fiction. I mean who was it that said "if you want to send me a message write me a letter"?
Any way, good idea...poor story.
This ain't one.
Just so you know this book is really nothing but a long screed on racism. If we humans can be racist why then aliens can also be racist. Thus we take an idea that has often worked and made a good story (aliens invade Earth etc.) and we use it to build a book about racist problems, racist bigots, racist beliefs etc., etc., etc.
I don't really need a science fiction book to tell me racism is bad, stupid and so on. if you do need that...well, here's your book. Just be prepared to put up with the idiotic monologues/dialogue of the racists in the book (human and otherwise).
Not a novel I liked, and I've pretty much seen the unpleasantness of real life I don't need lessons on decency in my fiction. I mean who was it that said "if you want to send me a message write me a letter"?
Any way, good idea...poor story.
September 22, 2022
Racist aliens? Didn't see that coming.
November 5, 2012
"The countdown continues
in Earthrise, coming from
Ace Books in the fall of 2002!"
After investing 19 precious days reading a book that I thought had an ending, and I come to the above statement, I believe I have a right to be disappointed. I quadruple-checked Deathday's dust cover and located no notice that it was "number 1" in a series of books.
Deathday by William C. Dietz (another author who should go faceless)is a good old fashioned Earth versus alien invaders story. And while having one big strike against it being a 'Surprise! I'm book one in a series', it also deserves kudos for not having even one explicit sex scene in it.
Oh but Dietz's character's utter the most powerful word in the English language (sadly it is no longer 'freedom') and that is 'nigger'. And author Dietz will probably be hung with a noose from the nearest tree for using it too. (Oops, forgot we cannot use the word 'noose' either. Sorry.)
His concept is that the insect-invaders, the Zin's, being dark-brown, and many African-Americans also being dark-brown, the Zins make our human blacks overseers of the whites just as the Zin's are masters of their own lighter-skinned brethren, the Fon. Got that?
The ruling Zin race is able to leap thirty feet straight up and sometimes come squat down on an unwary human, and are as ruthless as ruthless can be and I loved it. Their religion, which causes them to conquer Earth in order to build their temples, has more fables and falsehoods than Scientology. (Knock! Knock! Who's that at my door but Cruise, Smith, Travolta and Phoenix, Arizona's own 'Wonderful Russ'?)
'White Separatists,' American-Blacks segregated out by the bugs for the higher slave positions, professional ex-soldier bodyguards for the black human 'president', 'Survivalists', a love triangle, and hidden unrest among their fellow-cockroaches-made-slaves, all add to the suspense, turmoil and action of Deathday.
The title of Deathday refers to another unique and interesting concept author Dietz dreamed up concerning the life-cycle of our alien-invaders.
Some of the metaphors are silly. One being that, since the Zins have pincers and not hands, several times an idea is rejected "... out of pincer." Har! Get it, ha, ha, ha, not.
I found more than one odd metaphor along the lines of, "... as the Suburban's huge mud and snow tires whispered down the street ..." I've heard mud and snow tires, but I've never heard them "whispering down" any of my streets. He also lards his sentences with so many adjectives that rather than drawing the reader deeper into the scene, he is distracted by having to chew up and then spit out so many unneeded descriptors.
Deathday is a good 'Mankind versus the Aliens' book. And if you don't mind reading several books to get to the conclusion, it'd be a fun series to read. However, I continue to be upset by being tricked into buying a book that does not end when I have a good-sized unread library of books that do have endings and are waiting to be read.
March 5, 2023
Racism, religion, and aliens, oh my!
So what we have here is your classic 1950s bug-eyed aliens. Mix in some dumbed down cultural biases. Make up a new dumbass name for the invaders—not bug eyed monsters (BEMs) or extra-terrestrials (ETs)—but XTs. It’s just a relentless torrent of stupidity in which no one should marinated their mind and really deserves one star.
So what we have here is your classic 1950s bug-eyed aliens. Mix in some dumbed down cultural biases. Make up a new dumbass name for the invaders—not bug eyed monsters (BEMs) or extra-terrestrials (ETs)—but XTs. It’s just a relentless torrent of stupidity in which no one should marinated their mind and really deserves one star.
July 23, 2017
Disappointing.
Usually I like Dietz do I went ahead and read all the way through. But it never really mattered. There never became a story and it never really ended. Not sure what he was trying to do but it failed.
Usually I like Dietz do I went ahead and read all the way through. But it never really mattered. There never became a story and it never really ended. Not sure what he was trying to do but it failed.
August 4, 2011
Last Dietz book I read. It is good, but it suffers the same rushed ending feeling all his books tend to suffer from.
December 6, 2020
Alien invasion stories have been done to death since H.G. Wells gave us The War Of The Worlds so it is extraordinarily difficult to come with a new slant to this time-honored genre. Well, William C. Dietz pulls it off with Death Day and the concluding volume Earth Rise. What sets Death Day apart from most of the invasion tradition is, first of all, the invading force being made up of different races. This makes an interesting dynamic and gives the enemy character as their squabbles, in-fighting and fight for freedom (some are slaves to others) make for something new, different and engaging. Also, using racism amonst the aliens as well as the surviving human population rings a true, and tragic, note. The surviving pockets of humanity withdraw within themselves, close off their borders and horde resources. The aliens favor people of color and place them as overseers as human slaves are forced to work building alien temples on Earth. And, sadly, collaborators work with the invading force to control the humans. But the seeds of rebellion have been planted. Humans and enslaved aliens are fighting back and this first book sets up an alliance between the enslaved races. All this is interesting stuff and makes for a fresh approach. Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. Dietz is a great SF writer when it comes to letting character drive the story no matter the setting.
August 22, 2018
Dietz, William C. Death Day. Sauron No. 1. Ace, 2002.
I can imagine than when William C. Dietz saw Independence Day in 1996, he said to himself that even stupid aliens would not be as stupid as the movie aliens were. So, in Death Day, the alien invaders wipe out the air forces of the world with dispatch, put boots on the ground immediately, and quickly enslave the remaining human population. They exploit the racism in American society (Dietz does not tell us what they do in the rest of the world) and give black slaves the upper hand over white slaves. If humans want their planet back, they are going to have to fight a guerilla campaign to get it done. The plot works itself out like a TV movie that borrows details from the first half of Independence Day. If you are going to read Death Day, you should acquire the sequel Earthrise at the same time, because the first volume ends very much in medias res.
I can imagine than when William C. Dietz saw Independence Day in 1996, he said to himself that even stupid aliens would not be as stupid as the movie aliens were. So, in Death Day, the alien invaders wipe out the air forces of the world with dispatch, put boots on the ground immediately, and quickly enslave the remaining human population. They exploit the racism in American society (Dietz does not tell us what they do in the rest of the world) and give black slaves the upper hand over white slaves. If humans want their planet back, they are going to have to fight a guerilla campaign to get it done. The plot works itself out like a TV movie that borrows details from the first half of Independence Day. If you are going to read Death Day, you should acquire the sequel Earthrise at the same time, because the first volume ends very much in medias res.
May 18, 2021
So you have a pack of oversized physically abhorrent, Cicadae-like, aliens with human basal psyche's who have successfully overwhelmed technically superior races and stolen advanced technology, bringing with them a distastefully racist stratified militaristic culture based on skin or exoskeleten pigmentation. Said pigmentation, at least in their own race, naturally aligning with the darker color as being the smartest hue. This is a racist diatribe thinly wrapped in the guise of science fiction. Too many frayed and unrelated threads added to the fact the book is unapologetically incomplete makes this a ragged racist indoctrination at best, which is none too good.
June 3, 2019
What a unbelievable book - the world gets taken over by an alien race but the entire book is centered on the upper Midwest & not a mention of the rest of the world therefore the entire premises of the book are blatenly invalid. There's a resistance that sounds like a bunch of New York gangsters - totally a joke.
I will not be able to to read the second book cause it's a waste of time and really useless. Sorry this is just too stupid to go on with. It's an early work by the author so I just counted it as a learning experience.
I will not be able to to read the second book cause it's a waste of time and really useless. Sorry this is just too stupid to go on with. It's an early work by the author so I just counted it as a learning experience.
January 25, 2023
I enjoyed this and its a really quick read, a lot happening, but really had no idea (at first) that it would only be 1/2 of the story.
Thankfully I was able to find one copy of the sequel in our library system and put on hold, otherwise I would have been pissed.
Not your average invasion story - instead a complicated caste driven conglomeration of aliens, with a fascinating story line.
The earthborn factions are not without their own troubles, as the author deals with the prevalence of white supremacist enclaves in the US northwest.
Overall and interesting tale, well told
Thankfully I was able to find one copy of the sequel in our library system and put on hold, otherwise I would have been pissed.
Not your average invasion story - instead a complicated caste driven conglomeration of aliens, with a fascinating story line.
The earthborn factions are not without their own troubles, as the author deals with the prevalence of white supremacist enclaves in the US northwest.
Overall and interesting tale, well told
March 31, 2018
Just war and fighting, and more war and fighting. The human race is enslaved by three sets of aliens in a caste system and you can already see how they are going to get out of it. Collaborators are not what they seem, and the darker your skin, the more 'favor' you are granted by the aliens. Certainly not the best book I've ever read.
May 8, 2018
Great 👍
I spent an hour trying to find this book so I could read it again . It is a great read.
I spent an hour trying to find this book so I could read it again . It is a great read.
March 19, 2019
Started off well but for Sci-Fi which I enjoy, it dragged. Maybe you will feel differently, enjoy!
April 20, 2021
DNF, just couldn't get into it. The story idea was intriguing but the racial overtones kept pulling me out of the story
September 21, 2022
Bad story, boring characters, and no attempt to make the science right.
November 3, 2022
The racial and sexist overtones punched me in the face early on into this book. Listened to the audiobook and only lasted an hour. Nope.
January 20, 2015
ABR's full DeathDay audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
Long and Tedious. Makes you wish the aliens would finish off the humans quicker.
I am a science fiction fanatic and have read hundreds of scifi books, from Jules Verne to the present. I wanted DeathDay to be good. I listened carefully to all 16 hours hoping for something worthwhile to happen. I paid close attention to the mostly plot driven story, but finally reached the end more than a little disappointed.
The overarching plot is pretty simple and way over used: Aliens attack the earth because they need a new home. They kill billions of humans and enslave the rest (Battlefield Earth). The aliens have a hierarchy where the darker the skin, the higher their status. They force this upon the surviving human slaves too. That is an interesting premise, but quickly devolves into idiot skin heads killing black and brown people with abandon. Really? After half the human race is exterminated, that’s how humans would react. It just didn’t sound realistic.
The aliens are insect-like creatures that are hard to kill and can jump really high (Starship Troopers, Ender’s Game); except not on their own ships, because those are built by a super smart race of alien slaves who somehow forget to conquer their inferior masters. The aliens immediately learn English, can track every human, and continually squabble. They have very human-like emotions and are often more human than the humans. Sometimes, I found myself rooting for the aliens more than humans, though most of the time I just wanted everyone to die quickly.
This rambling story is narrated by Luke Daniels who has a smooth deep voice. His character voices for the aliens and human females were quite good. Unfortunately, all of the male humans sounded the same, like East-Texas ranchers. This distracted me from the story. Why did the black governor of Washington state sound like Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza? But otherwise, Daniels did a good job.
This is book one in a series of unknown length. The story didn’t end or even wrap up a little, it just seemed to stop at the end of the last chapter. There is no way I would sit through another 16 hours to find out what happens to all these two dimensional characters.
Audiobook provided for review by the publisher.
Long and Tedious. Makes you wish the aliens would finish off the humans quicker.
I am a science fiction fanatic and have read hundreds of scifi books, from Jules Verne to the present. I wanted DeathDay to be good. I listened carefully to all 16 hours hoping for something worthwhile to happen. I paid close attention to the mostly plot driven story, but finally reached the end more than a little disappointed.
The overarching plot is pretty simple and way over used: Aliens attack the earth because they need a new home. They kill billions of humans and enslave the rest (Battlefield Earth). The aliens have a hierarchy where the darker the skin, the higher their status. They force this upon the surviving human slaves too. That is an interesting premise, but quickly devolves into idiot skin heads killing black and brown people with abandon. Really? After half the human race is exterminated, that’s how humans would react. It just didn’t sound realistic.
The aliens are insect-like creatures that are hard to kill and can jump really high (Starship Troopers, Ender’s Game); except not on their own ships, because those are built by a super smart race of alien slaves who somehow forget to conquer their inferior masters. The aliens immediately learn English, can track every human, and continually squabble. They have very human-like emotions and are often more human than the humans. Sometimes, I found myself rooting for the aliens more than humans, though most of the time I just wanted everyone to die quickly.
This rambling story is narrated by Luke Daniels who has a smooth deep voice. His character voices for the aliens and human females were quite good. Unfortunately, all of the male humans sounded the same, like East-Texas ranchers. This distracted me from the story. Why did the black governor of Washington state sound like Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza? But otherwise, Daniels did a good job.
This is book one in a series of unknown length. The story didn’t end or even wrap up a little, it just seemed to stop at the end of the last chapter. There is no way I would sit through another 16 hours to find out what happens to all these two dimensional characters.
Audiobook provided for review by the publisher.
March 21, 2016
SOOOOO disappointed in this book. It reconfirmed for me that sci fi writers are increasingly reaching for ideas and plots that haven't been done before and in the meantime they insert unnecessary sex scenes and dirty language. Off-putting to the say the least. Good sci fi does not have to rely on over-the-top smoke and mirrors effects and outlandish plots. The art of "suggestion" works well as in the scary movie where we never actually SEE the boogieman but feel his presence. I think, in a sense the same is true of science fiction(ally) conceived aliens. Their "otherness" can come across in a variety of ways that have been, in the past, imaginatively used by the "greats" in classical sci fi writing.
July 28, 2011
If you like alien invasion stories, you'll probably like this one. Not great characters or plot or action, but not bad. I would have stopped reading early on, but I was on a trip, so I stuck with it. Somewhere around halfway I was invested enough to keep going. Not sure if I'll read the sequel.
The plot is very close to Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. I read that years ago, so this is competing with my fond memories of that one.
Perhaps I should say, this book is a modern take on the old classic.
The plot is very close to Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. I read that years ago, so this is competing with my fond memories of that one.
Perhaps I should say, this book is a modern take on the old classic.
February 16, 2010
This book had a lot of promise which it failed to deliver on. There are several interesting characters, but in the long run it is an awfully long prologue for the book that I haven't read yet -- its sequel.
I also think the white supremacists are rather mishandled as they come out looking far better than they should. That left me wondering if it was intentional the entire time I was reading the book, so overly distracting -- making me not want to bother with the sequel at all.
I also think the white supremacists are rather mishandled as they come out looking far better than they should. That left me wondering if it was intentional the entire time I was reading the book, so overly distracting -- making me not want to bother with the sequel at all.
October 21, 2015
This was surprisingly better than I anticipated for a potboiler scifi. The characters were more detailed than your usual end of the world book. I liked that it used race as a device to think notions of the aliens. At the same time, any aliens that speak English and make the US their base of attack tend to irritate me, but the English was from a universal translator. Not an amazing scifi addition to my collection, but still one that I will likely remember.
September 8, 2015
I mean I expected it to be shit, but...
30 pages in. We have the glorious but beaten bits of human military, the clearly racist assholes bent on causing mayhem, and the aliens who are such a blatantly obvious case of reverse racism that it's not even funny.
While it has some potential, but the storytelling isn't nearly engaging enough to actually bother reading the thing.
30 pages in. We have the glorious but beaten bits of human military, the clearly racist assholes bent on causing mayhem, and the aliens who are such a blatantly obvious case of reverse racism that it's not even funny.
While it has some potential, but the storytelling isn't nearly engaging enough to actually bother reading the thing.
July 30, 2008
This is the first in a duology. Sort of an Independence Day, War of the Worlds riff, but Dietz does it well and I liked both books quite a bit. Interesting aliens. I thought this first one was the best.
January 16, 2010
Not just another alien race conquering planet Earth story, this book tests your mettle with issues of race and prejudice. Hope and despair are fully embraced here and a finely woven plot plays out very well.
Read
November 26, 2012This adventurous and fast-paced novel features space warfare and alien invasions. Fans of military fiction in general, and Jack Campbell in particular, may find much to like in this series. This is the first in the Sauron Invasion duology.
March 25, 2016
Space bugs who need a place for their next generation to be born invade. One interesting plot point is how the invaders choose those with dark skin to be slave overseers, causing all sorts of racial tension.
April 14, 2008
Not his best work. Book continues in Earthrise; it may get better?
February 28, 2011
Meh - it was okay I guess. Not as good as, say, Footfall. Think I'll take a break before tackling EarthRise.
Read
July 24, 2011Not a bad story. Will read the sequel but not gonna run out any time soon.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews