Stranger from the Stars

by Nancy Etchemendy

Fourteen-year-old Ruthie rescues Rowen, an old man from the planet Seldor who has come to earth to study humans, when she finds him near death after his spaceship has crashed in the desert.

150 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

Nancy Elise Howell Etchemendy is a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly since 1980, both in the United States and abroad. Her work has earned a number of awards, including three Bram Stoker Awards (two for children’s horror), a Golden Duck Award for excellence in children’s science fiction, and an International Horror Guild Award. Her fourth novel, The Power of Un, was published by Front Street/ Cricket Books in March 2000. Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural, her collection of short dark fantasy for young adults, was published in 2002, also by Front Street/ Cricket Books and appears on the ALA Best Books for Young Adults list for 2002. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts and English Literature from University of Nevada, Reno. She is a former officer of the Horror Writers Association, and currently serves on the board of the Clarion Foundation. She attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 1982 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. She lives and works in Northern California and is married to John Etchemendy, Provost of Stanford University.

Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stranger from the Stars (1983) 150 pages by Nancy Etchemendy

Ruthie sees a stranger at the old mining camp. At first she is scared and runs away. When she tells Tom, she and the boy are helping her father on the ranch, he says to stay away. She goes to see the stranger the next day only to find him in a brawl with Tom. She goes back again, learns his name, finds out he’s part of an alien research team of which one member took a human artifact and tried to kill the rest of the team to cover up the theft. It didn’t work out well and now both aliens are stranded on Earth where they can’t survive very long.

Fast read, YA or middle grade. 4.1 stars. At first I thought this was old west—horse riding, twelve year old has her own rifle—but there are jeeps and motorcycles and phones (not cellular), so 1983. They must live in a rural area that borders on wilderness and desert and civilization in the other direction.