I had a sinking feeling when I picked up this book for review. A quick flick through, combined with reading the back cover, gave me the sense that this was some kind of New Age waffle aimed at sucking in UFO buffs.  There are times when my gut feeling is wrong.  This was not one of those times.

As I read through this mercifully short book I considered whether to actually even publish a review.  To be honest, within just a few pages I was intensely irritated by it. 

Here's the general gist of the book:  UFOs and alien visitation are real.  The aliens visiting have a negative agenda, which is a stealthy, underhand attempt to take over the world.  The individual freedom of each and every human is under threat.  (Does this not remind you of the now rather old-fashioned threat of Communism?)  But...help is at hand!  Because cosmic angels have sent invisible, unsourcable emissaries to somewhere near Earth, who are channelling  a message of hope through a new prophet, Marshall Vian Summers.

Well, thank goodness for that, because I was getting worried there...

Look, the basic problem with this, I honestly believe, is that it's all just been made up by the author.  There is not even one single attempt in this book to authenticate these claims.  It would be so easy for Marshall Vian Summers to channel up to his cosmic buddies a few searching astrophysics questions.  He could get them to do a 'Dogon', for instance, and provide some fact about a nearby star system which we are, at present, unable to confirm, but which technology is rapidly moving towards discovering.  Like the presence of exoplanets, for instance. But, no, that's not going to happen in the writing of Marshall Vian Summers, because that would be Science, and that is definitely not what this book is about. 

As far as I can make out, and this is my opinion, this book is about selling more books, and sucking punters into some kind of loose college of New Age wisdom teachings.  It's not even subtle in that approach... the last 21 pages of the book are devoted to self-promotion.  The Allies of Humanity themselves implore us to invest in this mini library of dangerous nonsense.  And why not?  Because they 'wrote' it, apparently.  Which is scary in itself, because their style is repetitive, sanctimonious and humourless. If they're the best intelligent life the universe has to offer, we're all in big trouble.  If I was an alien thinking up a strategy to liberate an endangered, primitive planet, this is not the approach I would take.  Not even close.  

'The Allies of Humanity' is TV Evangelism aimed at UFO believers.  Send your money in folks, to save your freedom and gain personal redemption... 

Anyone who is taken in by this stuff needs their head examining.

I feel obliged to provide a link to help you seek this book for purchase.  But, really, I wouldn't bother.  There are so many other great books about aliens and UFOs to buy and read.   The ONLY redeeming feature about this book is that there are no typos.  To err is human.  So, in a way, all humanity itself has been stripped out of the damn thing.  But that still doesn't make it alien!

  You can order your copy through Amazon.com here:

The Allies of Humanity

  If you live in the UK, you can obtain your copy through Amazon.co.uk here:

The Allies of Humanity

Book review by Andy Lloyd, 9th June 2008