Aliens (not extraterrestrials!) is a story of revolt against hypocritical conformity and snobbish sentiment,

A young artist and writer tells the story of two Carville brothers, one of them a sea-faring man; the other, a strange, sinister character, with great power over women, a character who never actually appears but whose sinister shadow nevertheless causes calamity.

Reviewing Aliens at the time of its publication, Life magazine called it “original, skillfully contrived and technically successful.”

William McFee (1881–1966) was an English author—a ship's engineer who became famous for writing sea stories. In addition to books about seafaring, he also wrote reviews for The New York Sun and The New York Times. Before William McFee became a writer, he went to sea as a marine engineer.