I Alien by Mike Resnick

by Mike Resnick

An all-original collection of twenty-seven stories by some of today's most inventive authors about alien encounters with humans-from the aliens' perspective.Contents 1 Introduction (I, Alien) essay by Mike Resnick 3 Diary of a Galactic Émigré shortstory by Laura Resnick 11 The Injustice Collector novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch 39 Creature for Hire shortstory by Paul E. Martens 51 Pedagogy shortstory by Michael A. Burstein 63 The Last Wave shortstory by Kay Kenyon 73 The Eagle Has Landed shortstory by Robert J. Sawyer 81 Correspondence with a Breeder shortstory by Janis Ian 93 Resident Alien shortstory by Barbara Delaplace 109 Xenoforming Earth shortstory by Tom Gerencer 125 The Skeptic shortstory by Jennifer Roberson 129 Natural Selection shortstory by Laura Frankos 139 Aortic Insubordination shortstory by Batya Swift Yasgur and Barry N. Malzberg 151 Harvesting shortstory by Nina Kiriki Hoffman 157 What Must Be shortstory by Josepha Sherman 165 And I Will Sing a Lullaby shortstory by Paul Crilley 173 Aquarius shortstory by Susan R. Matthews 187 First Contract shortstory by Linda J. Dunn 201 Anakoinosis shortstory by Tobias S. Buckell 219 Threshold shortstory by Terry McGarry 229 Nobodies shortstory by Adrienne Gormley 241 The Loaves and the Fishes shortstory by John DeChancie 251 Alien Ground shortstory by Anthony R. Lewis 265 Hi, Colonic shortstory by Harry Turtledove 275 Acts shortstory by William Sanders 285 Life Happens shortstory by Ralph Roberts 295 You shortstory by Stephen Leigh 301 Me shortstory by Mike Resnick

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Aliens, Fantasy

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting / amusing anthology of stories with an alien narrating (often telling of experiences with humans.) The alien perspective may work better for readers more open to other viewpoints, or doesn't as deeply identify with particular groups. As the introduction says, some science fiction has characters who come from other worlds but aren't as different / incomprehensible to humans as real aliens are likely to be. These stories don't necessarily have aliens who are as truly strange as actual aliens would be, but they try more to suggest differences and issues understanding between species. To give one amusing (but not exclusively non-human) example, in one story, the alien can't understand why humans would prefer to only work 5 days a week rather than all 7 days.

How the aliens differ from humans and to what degree varies between stories. The first story has an alien refugee coming to Earth to hide from its alien government. Its efforts to communicate with humans are complicated by the fact it looks like a dog. Eventually, it's forced to spend some time at an animal shelter...

There's a story of a human colony on another planet which has intelligent natives with a pre-industrial society. (The natives mostly allowed the humans to settle because they knew the colony's location would become uninhabitable in "a couple of season" - not knowing that was "a few years" to humans.) When a misunderstanding results in a number of human children doing something that results in their deaths, a dispute results. An interstellar injustice representative comes. The humans neither understand nor like the process. Neither side truly understands the other in the process. Although it was harm to human children causing the conflict, I was reminded of Native Americans and white settlers having conflicts as a result of each side having a different society and assumptions about things.

In The Eagle Has Landed, an alien who has been observing humanity from the Moon is excited when humanity reaches the point of landing on the Moon. Then after a few lunar missions, it waits and waits to see when humans will move further ahead.

In one we learn that an alien species modified ancient humans to behave in a way that would eventually result in climate / environmental change that would make Earth inhospitable to human, but just right for the aliens.

One story is told by an alien with a non-human body on another world. The alien society is at an early agrarian stage. Its adolescents have a time when they're required to try to survive on their own - in order to be accepted as an adult in their village. While the story may have aspects that could be interpreted as a metaphor for modern human society, it sounded like something that might happen in an early-agrarian human society.

One story is narrated by a designer-of-galaxies-in-training. He discusses the positive and negative aspects of his design of the Milky Way.

And about 20 other stories with different views.

Some stories have more humor, but the unavoidable issues are likely to cause some amusement in stories that aren't specifically oriented to that.

[Steve LaForest]

The Introduction was a bit more than 1 page by the editor - rather poor. I could do an intro for a collection on aliens off the top of my head that was this long! NO intros at all re authors or stories! EXTREMELY POOR - 3 unfinished. Of the 27 stories, 20 were rated C - range (from C - - - to C+++). I did a detailed ratings summary for this book, and included it in my listing for the Worlds Without End website.

[Ketan Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly forgettable collection of SF shorts told from the alien's perspective. I found many of the stories a bit too gimmicky though I liked the contributions from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Joseph Sherman ,Paul Crilley, Tobias S. Buckell and Tobias S. Buckell

[Charl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful collection of alien encounters with humans, all told from the alien point of view. Everything from heart-wrenching to chuckle-inducing. An excellent read!

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top quality Alien stories, from authors well known and not so much.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a theme anthology of first-person stories told from the viewpoint of aliens. Some of them are quite good, other less successful. I especially enjoyed the ones by Laura Resnick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert J. Sawyer, and Tobias Buckell.

[Craig Bolton]

"I, Alien by Mike Resnick (2005)"