Invasion
Book Review: Invasion: Earth by Harry Harrison

An alien ship crashes to Earth and when investigated turns out some violent aliens and their captive from another race. Having befriended the captive, there is a chance to gain a powerful ally in a war which is rolling towards Earth.

This is typical of the sort of science fiction book I used to love when I was younger. Short, to the point, it has a good idea and investigates it through to the end, which may or may not have a good twist at the end. Harry Harrison is particularly good at writing this sort of book, but the 70's and early 80's has loads of examples of them from all sorts of authors, including luminaries like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke.

The characters are relatively smart, the good ideas spread around a few of them so it doesn't seem too unrealistic, and you can see the logic behind their arguments. All in all it's just a nice little SF book which will give you some entertainment for a few hours.
Science Fiction, Aliens, War, Human-alien encounters, Fiction
Harry Harrison
Harry Max Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Stamford, Connecticut. He moved with his family to New York early in his childhood. On his 18th birthday, having graduated from high school, he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps, and serves as an armourer, gunnery instructor, truck driver, and military police officer. When the war ended, he became an art student at both the Hunter College in New York City and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. Upon graduation, he became a freelance graphic artist, providing illustrations for book covers, magazines, and comic books such as Weird Fantasy and Weird Science. He also began contributing articles to these magazines. In 1952, he moved into editing pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Fantastic. In 1954 he married, and their first child was born in 1955. In 1956 he became a full-time writer, and began working on his first book in addition to writing for other publications such as The Saint syndicated comic strips. Over the next decade he and his family moved to several places, including Mexico, England, Italy, back to New York for the birth of their second child in 1959, to Denmark for seven years, back to England in 1965, San Diego in 1967, and finally Ireland in 1975 where they settled. Harrison produced over 60 books, occasionally in collaboration with other well-known writers such as Gordon R. Dickson.