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The One
The Visitor arrived unnoticed.
He did not make pronouncements at the UN nor did he destroy Washington.
He went to Ross Parker, number one employee at Walter Roscoe's Used Pet Store, and asked for his assistance.
As the world watched and waited for what the alien did next, Ross Parker's life became wider, deeper, and stranger than he could ever have imagined.
And then there was the dog.
66,000 words.
About Wayne Wightman's
John Brunner, the legend “Wayne Wightman is agreeable company, both in person and via the printed page. As to the former, I’m afraid you will have to wait the chance to make his acquaintance…. As to the latter, however, now’s your chance.”
Orson Scott Card, Hugo and Nebula “[Wayne Wightman is] …one of the names I[‘ve] learned to look for…. He…is a romantic whose stories confess his belief that individuals can be larger than life, that their decisions can change the world around them.”
Best Story of the Year 2011 awarded to Wayne Wightman's “Brutal Interlude” by Orson Scott Card's online magazine The Intergalactic Medicine Show.
Richard Paul Russo, Philip K. Dick Award “One of Wightman’s great strengths is his willingness to go to the edge. He pulls no punches, whether the story is serious or violent or manic. You can count on him to take you places other writers shy away from.”
Lewis Shiner, writer par excellence and “Wayne Wightman… has produced an impressive series of connected stories… full of manic energy, rich in colors and emotions.”
Ed Ferman, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science “He writes top quality sf and fantasy, humor and horror, and he never forgets to tell a compelling tale.”
He did not make pronouncements at the UN nor did he destroy Washington.
He went to Ross Parker, number one employee at Walter Roscoe's Used Pet Store, and asked for his assistance.
As the world watched and waited for what the alien did next, Ross Parker's life became wider, deeper, and stranger than he could ever have imagined.
And then there was the dog.
66,000 words.
About Wayne Wightman's
John Brunner, the legend “Wayne Wightman is agreeable company, both in person and via the printed page. As to the former, I’m afraid you will have to wait the chance to make his acquaintance…. As to the latter, however, now’s your chance.”
Orson Scott Card, Hugo and Nebula “[Wayne Wightman is] …one of the names I[‘ve] learned to look for…. He…is a romantic whose stories confess his belief that individuals can be larger than life, that their decisions can change the world around them.”
Best Story of the Year 2011 awarded to Wayne Wightman's “Brutal Interlude” by Orson Scott Card's online magazine The Intergalactic Medicine Show.
Richard Paul Russo, Philip K. Dick Award “One of Wightman’s great strengths is his willingness to go to the edge. He pulls no punches, whether the story is serious or violent or manic. You can count on him to take you places other writers shy away from.”
Lewis Shiner, writer par excellence and “Wayne Wightman… has produced an impressive series of connected stories… full of manic energy, rich in colors and emotions.”
Ed Ferman, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science “He writes top quality sf and fantasy, humor and horror, and he never forgets to tell a compelling tale.”
199 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 28, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
July 26, 2026
This is a hard book to review - I can see why there are no other reviews at this point. It seems that, millennia ago, passing aliens seeded a promising planetoid with life, and here we are. Slightly ahead of us in time, an alien (taking human form) returns to see what happened. It's rather like a boy who built a dam coming back a year later to poke about in the pond that resulted. Fascinated for a while, but quite indifferent to the individual creatures, and increasingly wildly experimental before getting bored. His chosen human aide watches with bemusement and alarm. It's weird and compelling.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review