This book has been recommended by quite a few people as being a straight science fiction book by well-known Mormon author Gerald Lund. Most of the people I've talked to who have read the book say that it's not a Mormon story, and that it's fine if not spectacular. Though it was published almost fifteen years ago, the idea of a Gerald Lund science fiction novel was just too interesting not to pursue, so I borrowed a copy from list member Scott Bronson and read it.

The story follows a small group of people in Wyoming who have survived the end of civilization eighteen years earlier to create a quiet, self-sufficient community living a pioneer lifestyle. When they are attacked and captured by a band of uniformed people using high technology, they are taken to the city of Shalev in the Alliance of Four Cities. Eric Lloyd is one of the village leaders and finds himself separated from his family and brought to The Major, the head of the Alliance.

Eric discovers that the citizens of the Alliance are kept under control through the use of electronic implants at the bases of their skulls that use chemical receptors and tiny electrodes to deliver pain impulses to the brains of those who become angry or who feel guilty. Using Pavlovian behavior modification -- pain for bad thoughts -- the Major has built a crime free empire of obedient, peaceful people. And yet there is a police group, the Guardians, who are implant-free and who protect the community from threats both within and without the city walls. These same guardians are used as an army to find and capture those living outside the Alliance, bringing them in where they are implanted and integrated.

It seems the Alliance has a problem: once the implants are put in, the people lose their will to reproduce, so the population of the Alliance is dwindling. The story follows Eric as he is recruited to the Guardians, and as he tries to free himself, his family, and the entire population of the Alliance from the enforced righteousness of the Major.

As you can see, this is a most decidedly Mormon story. Though none of the characters are described as Mormon, the plot is straight out of the Mormon concept of the pre-existence and Satan's plan. It dramatizes that very Mormon story using an interesting setting and characters, and features Lund's trademark writing style.

As a Mormon story, The Alliance is interesting. It portrays the Major as functional evil, claiming interest in peace and happiness for his people, but also willing to coldly kill if individuals fail to comply with his will. But it also portrays several people who are converted to his plan because they have been fed a strong diet of propoganda about the evils of the old world. Nicole is a Guardian whose only memories of the end of civilization are the hazy nighmares of the apocalypse, and who has never really know life except within the Alliance.

The story builds some complex interactions and carries fairly good tension as we meet different characters and see how they react when finally given a choice between the Alliance and real freedom. That is suggests freedom is the better choice should come as no surprize.

As science fiction, though, the book comes up a little short. A friend of mine once described the movie Stargate as "a science fiction movie for beginners," and that is pretty much how I would describe The Alliance. This is a book for people who don't read science fiction but who might be interested in starting. It overexplains basic science fictional concepts without adding anything new to the ideas, with long, slow passages consisting of one man explaining things to another. It makes a big deal out of minor technologies, then forgets those technologies when convenient for plot.

For example, we have a scene at the end of the story where the good buys are about to blow up the computers that control all the implants in the Alliance. Though the implants themselves use radio or microwave technology, our intrepid bombers are using arcane mechanical plungers connected to the explosive by hundreds of feet of coiled wire. Why? So that we can have a scene that revolves around the wire as misdirection for the escape of the good guys. Not a critical problem, but indicative of a non-science fiction writer trying to write in a genre he's not very familiar with.

These kinds of little clinkers happened with fair regularity throughout the book and kept me shaking my head throughout. Where the book really hit its stride was when it concentrated on the pioneer technology and mountain-man activities in the wilderness outside the city. When it stuck with basic adventure, it was an easy read and a quick, lively story.

Stylistically, the book is plain and readable. There is very little in the way of verbal coloratura, and that made for an easy read. Lund does have the tendency to use odd similes such as, "the understanding hitting him like a runaway hay wagon," (page 22) or "The emerald eyes had suddenly become twin volcanoes belching fire." (page 88) There is nothing wrong with this kind of thing, but it does set a tone that feels more at home in a young adult novel than in adult fiction.

In fact, it could be argued that this is really a young adult novel. As such, its level of complexity is fine and the love story interesting. The writing is mostly invisible except for the odd similes, and the philosophical questions are strong ones. As YA fiction it would have to be considered a solid effort; as adult fiction it's neither complex enough, nor well enough written to rise above the average.

Taken as a whole, this is a good solid book that will be most at home with Mormon readers. It breaks little new ground as Mormon story, but dramatizes Satan's plan in an interesting and entertaining way. As science fiction it is at best a primer on basic sf constructs, occaisionally insulting even the science fiction novice with its insistence on fully describing simple science. Not a bad book, but also not one that rises out of the vast middle of either Mormon story or science fiction.

Scott Parkin
sparkin@itnet.com