The direct descendent of a carnivorous dinosaur has returned to claim the Earth.
Commander Pyg sets up her base in the ancient subterranean Ossiane Empire.
Nothing can stop her exterminating the human race apart from an eccentric geologist, sceptical science master, and a few surviving Ossianes.
And none of them know about the comet on collision course with the Earth.
First published by Swift Publishers as
THE DRUNE
in 1999
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By Dodo Books
May 16, 2008
"Babel's Basement (First published as The Drune)" As in her 1985 debut novel The Planet Dweller, Jane Palmer likes to confront wildly eccentric but plausible humans with alien weirdness, producing offbeat SF comedy containing the occasional serious barb. Here a determinedly sceptical astronomer has an awesome UFO encounter, while an overweight, female and black geologist with a fondness for speaking in verse falls down a rabbit hole into an inhabited underworld. Besides the traditional lost race from Atlantis, there’s an alien beachhead down there, except they’re not aliens but Ealinans--former inhabitants of Earth (related to the dinosaurs) who’ve returned to put humanity through complicated hoops, just as we make rats run mazes. Meanwhile, a world-destroying comet is due to hit in five and a half weeks, while some unknown hand has been stealing nukes wholesale from our strategic arsenals. It all pivots on the Drune, an apparent android who has a finger in eveiy pie and a... More > shifty line of dialogue. Why does the Drune live in those underground tunnels? “I like the view.” Can dotty Earthlings, midget troglodytes, chatty machinery and the elusive Drune outwit callous Pyg, the Ealinan leader whose expression is unreadable because she keeps her mouth underneath her chin’? Palmer’s narrative bubbles with frivolous inventiveness and unhinged dialogue, and has a gentle sting in the tail. Lightweight fun. – David Langford, Amazon.co.uk 1999< Less
