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Sci-Fi & Fantasy with MAT COWARD
Reviews of new titles by Lindsay Ellis, JT Greathouse and Nicole Jarvis

TRUTH OF THE DIVINE by Lindsay Ellis (Titan, £17.99) continues the story of first contact started in last year’s Axiom’s End.

The revelation that a small group of extraterrestrial refugees is living on Earth is triggering a realignment of US politics, as xenophobic leaders cash in on the widespread nervousness created by continuing government secrecy.

A new division in that most divided of nations soon arises, over whether people from another planet are, in fact, people in a legal and philosophical sense. Cunning right-wingers argue for a compromise in which the aliens will be granted partial personhood. That this semi-citizen category might in the future be used against groups of native humans is not lost either on policy-makers or their opponents.

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