OMIM

An agent must save a primitive race from repressive overlords in this religious/SF adventure.

In 2024, an alien signal breached every device on Earth capable of transmitting sound. The signal contained the words warand omim. This caused the world’s governments to unite around the notions that alien contact would be disastrous and that humanity must remain hidden from extraterrestrial civilizations. A group called the Saganites rejected this decision. These followers of famed science educator Carl Sagan wanted to contact aliens by any means necessary. Now, in 3024, humanity has colonized Mars. Agent Adam McShane of the Space Intelligence Agency has just celebrated his 50th birthday on Sex Club Row in Texopolis (formerly Texas, now a giant metropolis). In six months, he plans to retire from the SIA. Yet when Blue, the central government’s artificial intelligence, assigns him to stop a “SETI violation code six,” he has no choice but to accept the mission. Adam joins agents DeMartin and Vasquez in assaulting the Saganites’ secret Mars base. In the ensuing chaos, Adam is trapped on the rebel ship as it launches for Omega, the omim signal’s planet of origin. Miraculously, he survives the trip to Omega while a Saganite rebel rests in a hibernation chamber aboard. Her name is Lilith Sands, and Adam is immediately struck by her youth and beauty as she wakes. But she blames him for the death of her mate, Moksha the Seer, with whom she planned to greet the aliens of Omega. Now, the pair must navigate an untamed world full of primitive and dangerous creatures. Watching their progress is Sheeol, leader of the colonizing Omim race, who has dark designs for humanity.

McGruther’s tale will remind longtime SF fans of a classic Star Trek television episode in which Capt. James T. Kirk’s machismo saves the day. A tonal update to the formula adds plenty of violence and viscera, as the theoretically immortal Omim enact and survive punishments like villains from a 1980s action film. In one scene, “blown-apart Omim fragments formed into long centipedes with tiny human hands...scratching and clawing with razor-sharp nails.” The author also writes beautifully about alien worlds, as when Adam stares into the starlit night and “the cosmos...started to merge with the translucent slugs in the foreground, making it feel like I was hallucinating, watching the sky melt and drip in a cosmic dance.” Unfortunately, the cast is packed with caricatures. Adam is a “gentleman” who tries to treat Lilith deferentially, yet when he offers her assistance, she replies: “I don’t need a man to save me.” The only element more intrusive in this narrative than shallow gender politics is the attempt at religiosity. When the pair finds fresh water, Lilith says: “Oh, thank goodness.” Adam corrects her with “Thank God.” As for the Omim, they possess androgynous beauty and cloven hooves like the devil, and they literally eat souls. Whether these elements taken together play as horror or comedy will vary among readers. One motif that isn’t ambiguous is McGruther’s philosophical overreach in positing the supremacy of Christian values in a gore-laden genre novel. If Adam and Lilith had no Omim enemies to battle in converting the Omegans to God’s flock, they might have simply handed out copies of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian.

An intriguing but intensely violent SF tale.