The Last Cold War Novel

The Sykaos Papers
by E. P. Thompson
Pantheon Books, 1988, 490 pp., $19.95

An alien, Oi Paz, from the ultrarational, computer-directed society of the planet Oitar, crash-lands on Earth. Here he becomes a pawn in a cold war power struggle, typical of an irrational race whose belief in “free will” permits such pointless conflicts. (The Oitarian word for Earth is “Sykaos,” and the meanings of this coinage are not difficult to decode.) But the Oitarians are coming to rescue Oi Paz. Will the threat from without bring humanity together and usher in a new era of planetary harmony?

This crude plot summary of The Sykaos Papers— t...