The novel begins with an alien field agent, Lors, crashing on Earth and taking the place of Nick Danson, the human he resembles. Its best idea is emotional rather than technological: an infiltrator begins to care for the wife whose memories he cannot share, while human and alien observers close around the imposture.
Its best idea is emotional rather than technological: an infiltrator begins to care for the wife whose memories he cannot share, while human and alien observers close around the imposture.
The pace is brisk and the final exchange cleverly restores the real Nick without revealing first contact to the world. The book's gender politics and romantic assumptions are distinctly dated, and its espionage logic is sometimes more convenient than convincing. Readers expecting explicit decadence will instead find compact 1960s pulp about identity, desire, duty, and secrecy.
