Alien 3 Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific writer of sci-fi and fantasy. He may be best known for the science fiction adventures of Philip Lynx aka Flinx, an empath and his companion Pip, a miniature flying dragon. He also added his own magic to the hugely popular Chronicles of Riddick and the Alien movies with his novelizations of the films.

Many of his other stories have environmental themes and Foster is a master at building alien worlds. The setting for “Cachalot,” one of his earlier novels, is a water world, home to cetacean like creatures such as whales, dolphins, porpoises and narwhals. At first I thought the title Cachalot was a play on Camelot but after a bit of research on the internet I learned the Sperm Whale has also been known as the common cachalot, hence the title.

The story begins with a great premise. Sea dwelling mammals are hunted to near extinction. New worlds are discovered and remorseful humans transplant the surviving intelligence enhanced ocean dwellers to a water planet – Cachalot. Humans are living on floating cities and it seems as if the cetaceans have forgiven them for the years of slaughter. They’re growing in intelligence and even befriend some humans.

Suddenly these cities start disappearing and there are no survivors. A marine biologist and her daughter arrive to investigate. But Cora has her own problems; she’s a widow with a rebellious daughter. Are the sea creatures finally exacting revenge? Or is the truth even more bizarre?

Foster did a credible job crafting both an original plot and a unique world to set it on. The characters are well developed and conflict, romance and mystery keep things interesting. A nice twist at the end is unexpected. Summer is almost here and this one will make a great beach read!

This book was published in April of 1980 and it’s out of print, but you can find new and used copies on Amazon, Ebay and Alibris at reasonable prices.

Publisher: Del Ray

ISBN: 978-0345280664

Pages: 275

Ever since his classic debut, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first of the wildly successful Pip and Flinx adventures, New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has captivated readers around the world. Now this writer of bold imagination and stunning originality has created an electrifying space epic set in a universe at once strangely familiar and starkly terrifying. Familiar because the universe is ours; terrifying because the human condition might soon be. . . .

Not so long ago Marcus Walker was just another young commodities trader in Chicago, working hard and playing harder. But that’s all in the past, part of a life half forgotten—a reality that vanished when he was attacked while camping and tossed aboard a starship bound for deep space.

Desperately, Walker searches for explanations, only to realize he’s trapped in a horrifying nightmare that is all too real. Instead of being a rich hotshot at the top of the food chain, Walker discovers he’s just another amusing novelty, part of a cargo of “cute” aliens from primitive planets—destined to be sold as pets to highly advanced populations in “civilized” regions of the galaxy.

Even if he weren’t constantly watched by his captors, Walker has few options. After all, there is no escape from a speeding starship. Another man might resign himself to the inevitable and hope to be sold to a kindly owner, but not Walker. This former college football star has plenty of American ingenuity and no intention of admitting defeat, now or ever. In fact, he’s only just begun to fight.

The adventure will continue with two more novels

From the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers WeeklyAlien abductions are fast becoming an SF cliché, but bestseller Foster (Dirge) puts a fresh spin on the theme in the wacky first book of a new comic SF series about Marcus Walker, a Chicago commodities broker, and George, a talking dog. Both fall victim to the seven-foot Vilenjji, who roam outer space and snatch specimens from various backward planets to sell as novelty pets to wealthy clients. Marc and George are the only Earth samples in the vast traveling zoo en route to an undisclosed alien marketplace. The other oxygen-breathing sentients—caged in enclosures that imaginatively echo the places where they were captured—can communicate with each other and their captors, due to implants that have been softwired into their brains. Much mayhem ensues as Marc and the streetwise mutt decide to attempt an escape with fellow zoo allies, the huge, very scary, always hungry poetry-spouting Braouk (“Sorrow is sharing, the abducted are together, many one”) and the tiny, bejeweled, hysterically superior Sque (“a female of the K’eremu”). Walker’s enthusiasm in taking stock of the assets at their disposal in their wild bid for freedom—something his work has taught him to do “when faced with a difficult set of circumstances”—and George’s doggy determination make this a winner for all ages.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From BooklistYoung-turk commodities-trader Marc Walker is camping alone in the California wilderness to win a bet with his hometown Chicago buddies when he’s cold-cocked by buglike purple aliens and whisked into interstellar space. When he comes to, he finds himself isolated in a force field, along with his tent; selected pieces of the surrounding Sierra Nevada scenery; and George, a dog that talks, thanks to a universal translator and canine cranial upgrade. Through his furry friend and a snooty, octopus-like fellow captive, Walker learns that he and a menagerie of colorful extraterrestrials are prisoners on a galactic slave ship and destined to be sold as curios by their enterprising, amoral captors to the highest bidder. The parable of humans plucked for an alien zoo has been told often in sf but never with greater flare and more intrigue. Foster doles out enough wit, suspense, and original alien anthropology to keep readers spellbound from chapter one on. The utterly enchanted may look forward to a pair of sequels filling out a prospective trilogy. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the AuthorAlan Dean Foster has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: The Approaching Storm, as well as novelizations of several films including Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and Alien Nation. His novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first science fiction work to ever do so. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, reside in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from a turn-of-the-century miners’ brothel. He is presently at work on several new novels and media projects.

From the Hardcover edition.

Alien 3 Alan Dean Foster Pic

Alien 3 Alan Dean Foster Image

Most helpful customer reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
A Noble Savage Among the Decadent Aliens?
By Arthur W. Jordin
Lost and Found is the first novel in The Taken trilogy. Marcus Walker was a commodities broker from Chicago. Somehow, he found himself camping near the miniature metropolis of Bug Jump, California, to win a bet that he could actually survive outside civilization. Aside from a close encounter with the relatives of a possibly pregnant maiden, Marcus was looking good going in to the home stretch. Then he heard some strange noises around his tent and opened the flap to shine his flashlight directly into the eyes of a very alien countenance.

In this novel, Marcus wakes up the next day in a fairly convincing simulation of his campsite, but not in California. Instead, he is on a starship many lightyears away from home and putting even more distance from Chicago with each second. After some days of solitary confinement in his little diorama, one wall opens up to reveal the neighboring cell, an urban alley scene, and its inhabitant, a now talking dog of unknown ancestry.

After some discussion, the dog lets Marcus address him as George. Strangely enough, he is also a native of Chicago and was taken directly from that city. George has not been as belligerent as Marcus, so he has had the run of the common area for several days and has met many of their fellow captives. Thanks to his universal translator implant, George has discovered much about their captors. Among other info, George has discovered that they were captured for the curiosities market by a mercantile company of Vilenjji.

With some coaching by George, Marcus begins to mingle with the other captives and soon starts working on a plan to gain their freedom. He meets two other captives with exceptional mental and physical powers and brings them into the conspiracy. Despite their blatant disbelief in his goals, Marcus is determined at the least to strike back at their captors and, if remotely possible, to escape from the ship.

In this story, Marcus learns that he is not very special. Only his ability to learn humility keeps him alive. However, he perseveres in his goals, despite all objections; some would say that he is just too dumb to understand his situation, but he doesn’t agree … most of the time (those midnight doubts are hell).

The storyline combines the tale of the ignorant savage introduced to high society with that of the powerless slave escaping from the chains of a hellship. Of course, the author includes a clean, disease-free environment maintained by advanced automata, so the outward forms of this captivity are not as visible, but the psychological environment is just as miserable.

Highly recommended for Foster fans and for anyone else who enjoys light tales of humans among advanced technological societies and sophisticated sapients.

-Arthur W. Jordin

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
a boy and a dog go to space…
By Michael Lynn Mcguire
This book reminds me of a Heinlein Juvenile. It a very good read and the first of a trilogy. Having a man and a dog collected for a space zoo is a cool idea and their travails were interesting.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Foster at His Best
By Oz Griffin
I love stories where the everyday man is thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and you can’t get more extraordinary than being captured by a group of aliens to be sold on the market as a pet. This book is witty and full of suspense, but the key element to this book is Alan Dean Foster’s ability to develop deeply flawed, likeable, realistic characters in bizarre yet believable settings. Excellent Book!

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Alien 3 Alan Dean Foster