The Falling Torch

Blurb

The Falling Torch is a 1959 science fiction novel by Algis Budrys. A 1999 Baen Books edition was "very slightly rewritten, and includes one entirely new chapter.
The novel is about a group of freedom fighters who attempt the nearly hopeless task of liberating planet Earth from the grip of a race of alien invaders. The story has obvious overtones of freeing the author's homeland from its Soviet occupiers. In the foreword to the Baen edition, the author firmly denies that this was the primary reason for writing the novel. Instead he aimed to produce a story of a man who, like others such as Timur, were in some way disabled and alienated from society, before coming to dominate it.