History Literature / InvasionEarth

* CameFromTheSky: The novel starts with an object falling from the sky, except it doesn't follow a straight trajectory and changes course once or twice, before crashing in Central Park Zoo. The object crushes a man, and also kills a young woman and her child (averting InfantImmortality right away).

[[caption-width-right:180:One of the editions, showing a Blettr]]

[[SimilarlyNamedWorks No relation]] to the British [[Series/InvasionEarth TV series]] of the same name.''

* CunningLinguist: Nadia is an expert at languages. She, at the very least, speaks fluent English and Spanish. She's also studying the Oinn language and [[spoiler:it shocked to discover that the Blettr speak the same language]]. Rob also knows some Spanish, although that's not that unusual in the US.

* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: Averted, the Oinn keep brushing off the human attempts at getting a closer look at their technology due to the war, and the all the systems on the Blettr ship that crash-lands in Central Park burn out. [[spoiler:Neither race has any intention of giving humans their technology. Hes'bu deliberately burn out the systems on the crashed ship in order to keep the technology out of human hands. They've PlanetLooters, who are trying to convince humans to supply them with radioactive material for their reactors and weapons. At the end, though, the humans force both races to leave a small ship behind for humans to study]].

''No relation to the [[Series/InvasionEarth British TV series of the same name]].''

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* BrandishmentBluff: Near the end, [[spoiler:when all the gloves are off, and the aliens are threatening to drop bombs on human cities, if their demands are not met, the military informs them of a secret laser weapon that can obliterate any ship in orbit. The aliens call the bluff, Rob picks up the phone and says "Fire!", and the alien ship explodes. The rest of the aliens are hesitant, even though no weapon fire was detected (then again, a laser would be kinda hard to detect). It turns out, the soldiers simply planted charges on the ship, when it was on the ground, and detonated them on command. The next bluff is against TheMothership on the other side of the Moon. The American general claims that NASA has secretly planted nuclear mines all across the Lunar surface. Unwilling to test that hypothesis, given what happened to the other ship, the aliens hightail it out of the system. When Nadia asks the general if that's true, he smiles and tells her it's classified]].

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Justified (see AliensStealCable). However, Nadia starts learning the Oinn language. [[spoiler:She starts to get suspicious, when she realizes that the Blettr are using the same exact language. During the meeting with the Blettr leaders, Rob and Nadia switch to Spanish in order to talk privately, as the aliens didn't bother to learn it.]]

A UFO crash-lands in the Central Park Zoo. Colonel Robert Hayward of Air Force Intelligence and his team enter the craft and, after killing a hostile ape-like creature, find a slightly more humanoid prisoner, who at first speaks Russian then English.

* TyrantTakesTheHelm: A general arrives via helicopter to the site of the crash-landing and tries to take charge. The NYPD captain is having none of that and has him arrested for trespassing. The helicopter pilot is smart enough to immediately take off.

* ApocalypseHow: Two large cities get destroyed by OrbitalBombardment during the battles with the Blettr: Denver and Tomsk. Earth city has roughly half a million people in it. Naturally, both the Americans and the Soviets are very eager to get to the bottom of this.

* FastTunneling: The Blettr have a giant worm-like machine that can quickly move through the lunar rock.

* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: Averted, the Oinn keep brushing off the human attempts at getting a closer look at their technology due to the war, and the Blettr ship that crash-lands in Central Park self-destructs. [[spoiler:Neither race has any intention of giving humans their technology. Hes'bu deliberately sets the self-destruct on the crashed ship in order to keep the technology out of human hands. They've PlanetLooters, who are trying to convince humans to supply them with radioactive material for their reactors and weapons. At the end, though, the humans force both races to leave a small ship behind for humans to study]].

* ItOnlyWorksOnce: ''Invasion: Earth'' has a version of a bluff that only works once. [[spoiler:When the crew of an alien ship threatens to drop radiation bombs on Earth cities, the military replies that they have a secretly-developed laser weapon trained on the ship. The aliens try to call their bluff, but their ship promptly explodes. Turns out there is no laser weapon after all, but the soldiers simply planted charges on it earlier. The remaining alien ship, after a few more words, wisely decides to leave and not challenge the bluff.]]

* ReverseRelationshipReveal: [[spoiler:An alien spacecraft crash-lands on Earth, after being hijacked by a different alien race. It is subsequently discovered that the peaceful alien race is being set up to look like aggressors by the aliens who actually want to take over Earth.]]

* TakeAThirdOption: The Oinn build a base in the Antarctic that protects Earth from the Blettr, depanding a steady supply of radioactive material to power it. [[spoiler:The Blettr claim that the Oinn are the bad guys, and they want the humans to supply ''them'' with radioactive material to help with the war effort. So what do the human higher-ups decide? Attack the Antarctic base to see what's really going on, something the Blettr told them not to do.]]

* TheMothership: A Blettr fortress ship manages to get through the Oinn defenses and lands on the other side of the Moon, where the Oinn defenses can't touch them, while also giving themselves a prime location for launching assaults on Earth.