Jason woke up as a different man in that hibernation tank; different from the monster he was back on Earth, the monster who killed Miranda's daughter. Miranda wasn’t even supposed to find out that he did it, but a mysterious stranger on the phone told her everything. Now she must protect him as he intercepts a hostile alien tribe in order to find out more about them.
Undercover Alien can be found here
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Undercover Alien provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Miranda, and later on Mokam and Xantz Ctarlax, to an extent.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The easiest way to kill a Vartar is to pierce its eyes.
- Becoming the Mask: It's not long before Soap feels like a genuine member of the Komao, not surprising, considering that they're the first ones to show him any respect at all.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: If you're a Komao, and you don't fall under this, you're going to have a bad time.
- Berserk Button: Miranda might at times come across as a doormat, albeit a snarky and passive agressive one, but hurting a child, human or otherwise, is the fastest and easiest way to send her on the warpath.
- Black Speech: Suberted. The Vartar language sounds ugly to both human and Komao ears, but the Vartar as a race are not the evil abominations that the Komao believe them to be.
- The Chosen One: The Komao eventually see Soap as this.
- Death of a Child: Though most of the children are grotesque alien creatures. Britney, the one human child, dies years before the start of the novel, though it's never revealed how Jason Lennox killed her or any of his other victims.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Neither society conforms to 21st century sensibilities at all, though they have their good and bad points.
- Deuteragonist: Soap and Miranda are the only two characters who get point-of-view scenes. The first ten chapters focus more on Soap's journey, with the exception of Chapter 2, but after that, Miranda gains more prominence.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: Both the Komao and Vartar have their good and bad points, though both societies would seem downright barbaric by the standards of the 21st century developed world.
- Humanoid Aliens: The Komao and Vartar both have two arms, two legs, and one head, and that's all they have in common with humans.
- The Komao are described as having longer necks, lavender skin covered in scales, and two mouths
- The Vartar are described as having similar proportions to a gorilla, having crimson skin, a large cluster of eyes, and they breathe through gill-like structures over their shoulders.
- Identity Amnesia: Jason Lennox lost his memory while traveling across space in a hibernation tank. He is made aware early on that he was a sociopathic child-killer, but refuses to acknowledge that he is the same person and instead believes that he must be a walk-in spirit. Despite some bewilderment at being named "Soap", he accepts the name and his role in the Komao tribe easily enough since it will further distance him from the monster he can't remember ever being. At one point he therogizes that he might be the Original Soap, returning once more into his body, while at another point he wonders if he might be one of Jason Lennox's victims, who took over the man's body as an act of vengeance. His former persona never resurfaces.
- Lack of Empathy: Hax Thraku. Also Jason Lennox before losing his memory in the hibernation tank. The latter, in his journal entry, wonders what it's like to have emotions while at the same time feeling contempt for those who have them.
- Mama Bear: Miranda becomes this to the Komao toward the end of the book, whether they approve of it or not.
- Mentor: Zeng Quo to Soap, because of the prophecy.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Vartar have rows of jagged teeth that fall out all the time. Spitting out your teeth at someone is their equivalent of flipping someone the bird.
- Rite of Passage: Ramyak, in which the two boys hit each other with sticks, one at a time, until one of them screams.
- Taken for Granite: According to Komao legend, this happened both to Boeb and Yil thousands of years ago.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Mostly in the middle third of the book.
