SOLVED. Alien overlords mentally enslaving other alien races [s]

[Brett]

SciFi book adult oriented, read 10-15 years ago.

The main plot points that I remember are there there is an alien species that was especially good at mental control and would enslave other alien species if they couldn't be brought to heel by other means. The part that stands out in my mind is that even though they had subjugated earth (I think) they hadn't used the mental compulsion. When one of the alien Overlords did try, the human mind was like a psychic boobytrap. It was heavily remarked about "how could a species without any mental abilities, develop mental traps".

I believe earth was described as an out of the way backwater type planet where there was no other life any where near it. Also that humankind was viewed as extremely warlike compared to most other species.

[Andy]

This is Alan Dean Foster's series starting with A Call to Arms A Call to Arms

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Salvage and Destroy is another possibility, although I don't really think it is likely. But, it's an interesting one, with the aliens who can control all the other species EXCEPT humans mentally. And Earth isn't so much enslaved as almost unknown except for the garbage we send out in the form of TV and radio waves. But Earth is definitely viewed as out of the way and war-like.

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Andy, this was my suggestion - but I wasn't nearly so positive. Were humans booby-traps in ADF's series? I only recall that humans were battlefield geniuses, and very capable in warfare (stronger, semi-aquatic, tactical thinkers, not scared of/incapable of killing other thinking beings, etc).

I recall the bad dudes as mentally enslaving other species (and gene-engineering them to be warfare-capable) - but that they did so at the slightest drop of the tentacle, not something they did if everything else failed.

I only recall bits and pieces about the psychic humans being uncontrollable by tentacled-baddies - not every human.

[Andy]

Justanotherbiblophile wrote: "Andy, this was my suggestion - but I wasn't nearly so positive. Were humans booby-traps in ADF's series? I only recall that humans were battlefield geniuses, and very capable in warfare (stronger..."

If I recall correctly, humans were immune to the aliens' mental persuasion - when the aliens tried, it caused bad effects on the aliens (Amplitur?), thus leading the aliens to genetically/surgically modify captive humans - and that's what unleashed the further human mental powers. The aliens did prefer to influence others subtly, calling their commands "suggestions".

[Andy]

Further info https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re... mentions the human defense against alien influence and this http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da... has more details.

[Brett]

I think that Alan Dean Foster's "A Call to Arms" is exactly what I was looking for. I think the description of the main character as a New Orleans composer was really throwing me off. I will reread the book to be positive but I will mark this solved for now. Thank you!

[Andy]

Glad to help.

[Bargle]

A Call to Arms

Clicky for the book.

And the TBR list grows ever longer.