The Aliens

by Murray Leinster

The human race was expanding through the galaxy... and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it...?

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction, Short Stories

48 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1959

About the author

see also:
Will F. Jenkins
William Fitzgerald Jenkins

Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

An author whose career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. From mystery and adventure stories in the earliest years to science fiction in his later years, he worked steadily and at a highly professional level of craftsmanship longer than most writers of his generation. He won a Hugo Award in 1956 for his novelet “Exploration Team,” and in 1995 the Sidewise Award for Alternate History took its name from his classic story, “Sidewise in Time.” His last original work appeared in 1967.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of five science fiction stories by Leinster concerning mankind's meeting and interaction with alien life. The title story is from a 1959 issue of Astounding SF, and there's also one original short story (Thing from the Sky), a 1947 short story called Skit-Tree Planet from true pulp Thrilling Wonder Stories, Anthropological Note from F & SF's April 1957 issue, and the longest story is Fugitive from Space, which was a novella in Amazing Stories in 1954. They're all good, some curiously dated, but still thought provoking and fun. The Aliens was my favorite, but I enjoyed Fugitive from Space a lot, too.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Aliens was the lead story (with a fine cover by the nearly forgotten H.R. Van Dongen) in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction magazine in August of 1959. It's a fine first contact/puzzle story with a romance kind of awkwardly grafted on around the edges. Like Leinster's famous earlier story titled First Contact (which won a retro-Hugo for the best of 1945), it shows a hopeful and positive future in which mankind works out their differences with aliens and work together for the mutual benefit of all. It's a fun and feel-good future fiction. It was collected in 1960 along with a handful of other Leinster works for a Berkely paperback titled The Aliens, but I just listened to the one novelette via LibriVox.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the lines in this 1959 sci-fi story are priceless!

“Battles have always been fought within eye-range, anyhow.”

“Look Taine! You were picked for your job because you were a xenophobe.”

[Sara]

War at star
with many spice
they want in the end our bred
no funny skile
no moon inside
shadow of thunder all was there
hard rain full of hate with thee come
ugly war not satsfay even woman prid
storm wond take human flower with thee
human blood near y white knife
got yr war my child
earth havnt had it edg
many filds but thee want one
many ship carry hope
to end that what start

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite a 3 star read, but an interesting first contact story with an awful romance that was pasted in to humanize it & prove that women were treated poorly in older SF. The main conflict comes off a ridiculous, but I swallowed it. Governments have done things just as stupid & it allowed the rest.

The interesting part was the differences between races & what that meant in terms of tech & conflict. While not a particularly likely scenario exactly, it was good food for thought.

[Wes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story turns out to be great. I give four stars because the setup is a bit weak and misleading. I get that it needs to be clear that for one species to survive, the other must die premise is the point. However, the setup makes it an almost driving desire. As the story unfolds, of course that softens amidst conflict. The story is well described and immersive. The 'love story' is quite patched in. It is not even directly stated nor necessary. Since it does not detract from the story it is an allowable event. This story in short does what lengthier space narratives do. So I am saying that this is like a condensed Stardust Voyage (Steven Tall) narrative.

[Katrina McCollough · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good 'first contact' story. First published in Astounding, August 1959.

Can be found here: link

And as part of the compilation The World Turned Upside Down

[Mark Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old school sci-fi short stories. I liked all the low tech.

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leinster comes with a first-contact dilemma that has been discussed vehemently for many years already. At first he does not take sides, just points out what the issue is. We, Terrans, would like a peaceful first contact but obviously, based on our own past and experience, we trust nobody.
We are afraid that aliens might be technologically more advanced than we are. Even worse, if they are hostile or xenophobic, thay might eradicate us from the universe. Or confine us to the interstellar equivalent of home-arrest: remain in our own solar system.
In Leinsters story Earth authorities play on safe. A discovery ship full of scientists but heavily armed and with a xenophobe in command.
And then the genius of Leinster shows. First contact. But no communication. Then the aliens do something supicious and the xenophobe takes charge. At first sight he did the right thing... but things are not as they seem.
Psychologically strong, very tense, full of action and with a positive, even humorous tone and a little romance to top it all off. Murray Leinster is a genious and his books will fascinate SciFi fans for many years to come, regardless the real scientific progress humanity goes through.

[Lorena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Aliens was such a strange little book. I listened to it during commute this week. It just had enough space navigation information for one who doesn't know much about the subject feel like it rang true, but not too much to feel overwhelming.
The main plot was interesting. Once two sides have decided that the other is hostile, can anything be done to avoid conflict and have a positive resolution?
Apparently, YES!

[Christopher Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up really enjoying this book for one reason or another. I believe it's because the prose was so well crafted, and the whole novel exuded an air of intelligence. I wasn't entirely too impressed with the end, but, nonetheless, I'm keen to read some more of Leinster's work which I'm sure won't disappoint.

[Scott Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was enjoying the book and thought the author did a good job of describing the first encounter between humans and an alien race. Unfortunately, it just stopped! Granted, it was towards the end of the story but there was still plenty that could have been done. You are left with the job of ending the story for yourself.

[Dave Law · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I know others haven't enjoyed this story as much as I have, I found it a first rate and totally believable first contact story. It has held up well through the years unlike many SF stories of the period.

[Adhoc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scrimshaw? Really?

[PSXtreme · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relatively some simple Human meets Alien, Human Attack Alien, Human and Aliens find a common ground and work together. The way this one ends, it SCREAMS for a sequel or a series....

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved reading this story! How it turns out in the end is so delightful and unexpected!

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is public domain and thus easy to acquire for reading, if you want to. I read it because it's the lead-off story of the The First Murray Leinster MEGAPACK ®. It's also available on gutenberg.org, complete with the illustrations that were featured in the August 1959 issue of Astounding Fiction it was first published in.

This was one of the odder novelettes I have ever read. I would probably give it an additional star for the suspense value of the story and its good structure. But I have to deduct a point for the author's skewed, paranoid view of reality which really reveals itself in this story.

We are in the future. Mankind is involved in the enterprise of interstellar travel. We have come across another set of travelers called plumies. No reason is ever revealed for calling them that, one of many odd story omissions. We know plumies exist only by encountering artifacts they leave behind, and never come across a live one. Until now. This is a first contact story of sorts featuring just five characters: 1) Baird, the protagonist and most reasonable person in the story, 2) the captain, never given a name, 3) Diane, the communications officer and Baird's love interest, 4) Taine, a psychopathic weapons officer who likes shooting first, then some more, and fianlly finishing up with another few rounds to his target's head, before he thinks to ask questions, and finally 5) the alien they meet--a plumie.

Leinster extrapolates the way he believes it went down historically between Neanderthals and Cr0-Magnons to his first contact story between humans and plumies. It's a variation of the "there can be only one" mentality. Taine is on board to make sure that the one is us, the good guys, which is the human race of course. However, there is never a rational basis for this hostility towards plumies presented other than the fact plumies exist. This is a huge plot hole for me.

There are other holes too. The budding romance between Baird and Diane is just silly and completely unprepared. The nature of this spaceship and why it's travelling between stars is never delved into. Nor is any other background about future human society ever provided. We just have this first contact situation, these five characters, and 13,692 words going round and round dwelling on things repeatedly while never properly informing the reader of information we're entitled to know.

It's not a complete failure as a story. There are some unique features in the first contact encounter that are highly original to Leinster's story. I've never seen another feature anything like the battle that took place. But the story's style anomalies keep it from ever being more than a weirdly plotted novelette anecdote. It makes me wonder why the editor didn't sit down with Leinster and try to improve this beast. It had potential.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as an ebook checked out from the library. I guess I didn't look at the details too closely when I checked this out - I was expecting a novel length work, and this is more like a short story. I completed it in one sitting. It's a tale of first contact between men from Earth and an alien species. Earth people have started to spread out across the galaxy, and in doing they encounter intriguing artifacts left by some other, alien spacefaring race. The Earthmen perform their further exploration of the cosmos armed to the teeth on the assumption that when they do eventually encounter the aliens, shooting will ensue. When an Earth scout ship finally does come across a lone alien spacecraft in a distant solar system, the Earthmen wind up blazing away at the aliens, damaging the drive on their own ship in the process. The aliens are unharmed, but when they approach the Earth ship, the two vessels wind up stuck together, apparently dooming both crews. Negotiations between the two species ensue, and they wind up helping one another escape. The seeds of peace and love and interstellar trade are planted, and the ending is all very "feel good".
I am not sure when this short story was written, but it feels very 1950's. I am assuming that this is intended to state in some way that despite the ideological differences between the USA and its enemies (read: the Russians) we should be able to find some way to get along. Yada yada yada. Three out of five stars.

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story of first contact that so nearly ended differently due to a xenophobic weapons officer.

Also treated to a great narrator “tabithat“ who speaks a bit more quickly than I’m used to but it is not a problem and she thereby keeps the story moving.

[Paul Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good old classic science fiction.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic (and I do mean FANTASTIC) short sci-fi stories. One is more a novella, but they are all great, some better than others.

[Audiobook Heaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I listened to the audiobook version on YouTube. I will leave the link below so that everyone can enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJmMu...

[Joe Santoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

It looks like there's one new at the time story, and a few others from the pulps... 5 in all, all about aliens.. the rare 60s sci-fi book that actually is about what it says! Pretty good collection overall, though it's kinda funny that the first three all end with marriages.

The Aliens : A First Contact in space story that feels somewhere in between CS Forrester and primordial Star Trek. The unique twist is the humans have a guy that's a Xenophobe on staff, on purpose, in case the aliens are hostile. Excellent story with a somewhat sappy ending.

Fugitive from Space : As the title implies, an alien criminal crash lands running from the space cops and takes a couple hostages to try to learn enough about Earth to blend in. More of a character sketch of the hostage and his girl that anything... the alien could have been a Russian Spy and had the story be just the same. Not bad, but nothing exciting.

Anthropological Note: A female researchers gets involved into a ERB-ish tribe of Venusians to try to score a big paper, only to find the man who married and killed her little sister is there, too. The culture on display, the Krugs is pretty hilarious once you figure it out, as is the ending.

Skit-Tree Planet: Scouts keep finding planets with no sign of civilization but miles and miles of cultivated trees... until a disappearing city finally appears on the horizon. Not a great story, but a very inventive alien.

Thing from the Sky: Yeah, not the best titles. This one is another crash landing alien.. this one in the middle of the desert with bad terraforming intentions, who is foiled by a dry-land botanist investigating Seco Valley. According to the copyright info this was the 'new' story for the collection... not bad, but nothing special.

Pretty good overall, with a couple real winners.. well worth the read :)

[Jim]

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of The Aliens. This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Murray Leinster, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside The Aliens: "We picked up no tuned radiation from outer space, sir, but it could be that they picked us up when we came out of overdrive and stopped all their transmissions until they had us in a trap."...But the only fact known about the Plumie civilization came from the cairns and silicon-bronze inscribed tablets they'd left on oxygen-type worlds over a twelve-hundred-light-year range in space, and the only thing to be deduced about the Plumies themselves came from the decorative, formalized symbols like feathery plumes which were found on all their bronze tablets. ...There were more of those inadequate noises as rockets   went out-every tube on the starboard side emptied itself in a series of savage grunts-and the Niccola's magnetronic drive roared at full flux density....The fact that there had been a collision, that the Niccola's engines were melted to unlovely scrap, that the Plumie ship was now welded irremovably to a side-keel, and that a Plumie was signaling to humans while both ships went spinning through space toward an unknown destination-these things did not affect the obligations of the radar room....When he was fully upright, sick with horror at what had come about, there was sunlight yet again, and men   were coming out of the Niccola's air lock, and the Plumie who'd leaped for space was pulling himself back to his own ship again.

[Dianne Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not my favorite Murray Leinster because the length restricted a lot of the character development and the establishment of skills sets of characters such as Baird. The reader/listener is thrown into a mission where humans make first contact with an alien race that they've been attempting to locate for some time after finding artifacts of the race on a variety of planets. I would have liked to have seen some further character development, but the length of the work restricted this.
That being said, I did enjoy the story as a whole. This is on account of tabithat's reading of the story. She presents the story with the skills of a professional voice actor and narrator. As such, I will be tracking down and listening to some of her other LibriVox readings. Her delivery raised the story from a three rating to a four rating.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story was published in Astounding Science Fiction, August 1959.

This is classic science fiction where humans and aliens make first contact. There is action, drama, and the style of Murray Leinster that I enjoy:

. . .Baird ran toward him. The sensation of running upon magnetic-soled shoes was unearthly: it was like trying to run on fly-paper or bird-lime. But in addition there was no gravity here, and no sense of balance, and there was the feeling of perpetual fall.

🪐 🚀 Recommended for a believable first-contact type of story.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very short! I think the listening time was 2 hours or less and I kind of wish he'd written a longer book and developed the story further than he did.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little pat and cliche. Wish I knew more chemistry to know if the plot line makes sense in some places.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute ending

[Chris The Story Reading Ape · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little 27 page story from 1959 during the golden age of Sci-Fi writing (in my totally biased opinion :))