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eBook Category: Science Fiction Year's Best Science Fiction Selection
eBook Description: One of Silverberg's most recent short works, this sweeping story has received widespread critical acclaim. It tells the tale of a boy who grew up to challenge The Entities, a group of alien invaders who took over the earth in a single day. The story is rich in detail and background, and tells a drama both of human failings and courage under extreme adversity.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: SF Age, 1997
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2000

212 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [189 KB], eReader (PDB) [60 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [49 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [45 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [58 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [115 KB], hiebook (KML) [132 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [77 KB], iSilo (PDB) [41 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [50 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [78 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [71 KB]
Words: 15405
Reading time: 44-61 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

This story is a powerful one that not only includes the exploration of issues involving alien contact and conquest, but also delves into the deeply personal troubles of a human. In it we meet Khalid, a character faced with difficulty since birth, the circumstances of which are shown to us in the story. Khalid has never known a world with the Entities, an alien race who conquered Earth in a single day. The story takes place in England, where Khalid, "a child of uncertain parentage and dim prospects", grows up under the tyranny of the Entities, and also the tyranny of others. Silverberg gives us an intense and at times graphic story of Khalid’s struggle for physical and emotional survival. -Scott Danielson, Fictionwise Recommender

"Beauty in the Night" is one of a number of stories that Robert Silverberg has wrapped together in his new novel. His world is ours, but utterly changed by the conquest of Earth by unbeatable aliens. Living under total domination changes the people as well, some much more than others. Growing up under total domination may be even worse." -Steve Carper, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

He was a Christmas child, was Khalid--Khalid the Entity-Killer, the first to raise his hand against the alien invaders who had conquered Earth in a single day, sweeping aside all resistance as though we were no more than ants to them. Khalid Haleem Burke, that was his name, English on his father's side, Pakistani on his mother's, born on Christmas Day amidst his mother's pain and shame and his family's grief. Christmas child though he was, nevertheless he was not going to be the new Savior of mankind, however neat a coincidence that might have been. But he would live, though his mother had not, and in the fullness of time he would do his little part, strike his little blow, against the awesome beings who had with such contemptuous ease taken possession of the world into which he had been born.