Dreamland: A Novel of the Ufo Cover-Up - Hardcover

High energy and a clever concept can't rescue this lackluster thriller about a UFO conspiracy that dates back to the 1940s. The plot presupposes the truth of the Roswell Incident, a UFO crash the Pentagon has supposedly covered up for almost 50 years. The surviving aliens are now under close observation at a secret military base where they have their own breeding project and are developing a high-tech weapon called JOSHUA. The aliens have their own agenda, however, and they abduct pregnant astronomer Annie Katz and relieve her of her three-month-old fetus. Annie's history of miscarriages is used to justify her subsequent behavior: the day after being told she isn't pregnant, and never was, she goes back to work. By the time she finally undergoes hypnosis to relive her abduction, it's too late to alleviate the plot's dull uniformity, engendered by too-brief scenes, too many characters and too much focus on action at the expense of atmosphere (and, in Annie's case, of believability). Due in part to the authors' spare prose, events happen too quickly and to little effect, and the narrative suffers from a brittle superficiality that stifles the reader's interest. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Husband-and-wife Lindsay and Hemingway (she's the niece of Ernest) have come up with a sort of E.T. meets Darth Vader story. The authors seem convinced that UFOs and alien creatures are really real, and by golly, by the end of this riveting tale, they may almost make believers out of their readers--at least those who love a good sci-fi tale full of flying saucers and ripping good action. Annie Katz and her engineer husband, Stanley, live in the Southwest, where Stanley is working on the top-secret PROJECT JOSHUA. Annie, who is happily pregnant after a series of painful miscarriages, suffers from horrible nightmares that become reality when she discovers that her baby is missing from her womb despite the fact that she hasn't miscarried. Annie's friend Carol is a therapist who hypnotizes Annie to try to discover the truth about Annie's dreams and the missing child. To reveal more would be to ruin a good ending that will leave readers breathless--either from suspense or from laughter. For collections where UFOs draw a crowd. Emily Melton