Being Alien

Saga of Tom Red-Clay #2

by Rebecca Ore

All the different ways of being a smart calculating creature doesn’t mean that those creatures don’t do dumb things from time to time, borrow each others’ vices, and can’t have hangnails and broken feathers.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

277 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 15, 1989

About the author

Rebecca Ore is the pseudonym of science fiction writer Rebecca B. Brown.

Rebecca Ore was born in Louisville, KY, out of people from Kentucky and Virginia, Irish Catholic and French Protestant turned Southern Baptist on her mother's side and Welsh and Borderer on her father's. She grew up in South Carolina and fell in love with New York City from a distance, moved there in 1968 and lived on the Upper West Side and Lower East Side for seven years. Somehow, she also attended Columbia University School of General Studies while spending most of her energy in the St. Mark Poetry Project. In 1975, she moved to San Francisco for almost a year, then moved to Virginia, back and forth several places for several years, finished a Masters in English, then moved to rural Virginia for ten years, writing s.f. novels and living in her grandparent's house after they died.

Reviews

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Red-Clay was a teenaged parole violator when he was plucked from the mountains of Virginia to live among the 100 sapient species that make up the Karst Federation. Within a few years time he has found his place among the First Contact crews who handle bringing new species into the federation, but his liaison with a Tibetan woman descended from a tribe brought to Karst 500 years ago has not turned out well. As this second volume of Ore’s Alien Trilogy opens, Tom is detailed to a party sent back to reconnoiter earth, check out both how close the planet is coming to the gate technology that makes intergalactic travel possible, and find Tom a suitable mate in Berkeley, California. (Where but in Berkeley might aliens who despite surgery and costuming do not look all that human on close examination still be expected to pass as the real thing?) The group that returns to Karst includes Tom’s future mate, another couple who are, no matter how you finesse it, been more or less kidnapped for the journey, and Tom’s older brother, who’s brain has been addled by drugs and years of incarceration.

Ore is something of a miniaturist when it comes to plot. She opts out on the opportunity for grand, interplanetary adventure in favor of political maneuvering and mating rituals, but human and alien. And yes, there is some interspecies hanky panky. This second volume teeters on the edge of being nothing more than pleasantly boring, but the characters are engaging as they face the real life challenges of living among 100 alien species. Humans will be humans, just as Barcons and will be Barcons, and Gwyngs will be Gwyngs

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not often you stroll through the used book sale, see a title that interests you, glance at the back jacket copy and realize it is the sequel to a book you adored in high school!

I wondered if I'd be able to jump back into the adventures of Tom Red Clay having had a *mumblety* year gap... but no, each character was clear and memorable to me, and the author throws in lots of exposition for those who might not have read the previous book.

What I found more distancing than the world of the book was the world of the 1980s in which it was written. Ore's women seem painfully apologetic, her men childishly egotistical. I mean this as no criticism of the author, but of the society she portrays from within - 1980s America. I fear she did an excellent job.

That said, I did find the book exhaustingly paced. I wish she had slowed down and allowed half the action to take twice the time.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't read this book unless you've read the first one (Becoming Alien) as it starts more or less immediately after the first ends.

Tom goes back to Earth, finds a woman, and returns to Karst. The title is apropos as Tom is completely alien - to other humans, actually. You feel a little bad for him, although his problems are largely of his own making.

I'd like to see an omnibus volume of the trilogy someday. The stories really are best read all at once.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this novel a bit better than Becoming Alien - the Academy & Federation felt more real and the sense of alienation (so to speak) came across very well.

[Jenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Becoming Alien, but still interesting. It seemed much more dated, although the "People's Republic of Berkeley" hasn't changed much!
I think one of the characters lived on my old street. Before they moved to an alien planet, that is.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot happened in this book, and Tom didn’t deal well with much of it.
I’m glad I hung onto my old paperbacks of this series, because the OCR on the kindle version is some of the worst I’ve ever seen.

[Jenniffer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't really my cup of tea

[Aurora · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting reading but a hard book to really get into.