Invaders from Beyond

by David Thomas Moore (Editor), Julian Benson (Contributor), Tim Major (Contributor)

We are not alone... more’s the pity. Three poignant, sometimes blackly comic accounts, where unlikely heroes – kids, screw-ups, survivors – stumble their way through protecting Earth from faintly baffling alien invasions. It’s one of the oldest devices in science fiction, from Wells’ The War of the Worlds to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing . Why do so many aliens want to invade the Earth anyway? Who’s going to stop them? Is this going to take long?

Genres: Science Fiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2017

About the author

A lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, an avid roleplayer and LRPer, an enthusiastic if unskilled swordfighter and a passable cook, David Thomas Moore is the author of several short stories and one roleplaying supplement, and the editor of a number of anthologies. He is the Fiction Commissioning Editor at Rebellion Publishing.

Born and raised in Australia, he lives in Reading in the UK with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

[Kirsten Tattersall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is a collection of three short stories revolving around the idea of alien invasion.

Midnight at the Garden Center of Good and Evil by Colin Sinclair 0.5/5
I'm going to abbreviate this as Midnight for the sake of my sanity. This story was dreadful. The characters were flat and lacked depth. The "Big Bad" monologued for four pages and it was an absolute drag to get through. The, for lack of a better term, 'love interest' was a textbook definition of a manic pixie dream girl. The actual premise of the work was really great but the execution was very poor.

The Blighters by Tim Major 2/5
The Blighters was forgettable. The premise was also pretty neat here but I had no attachment to the main character.

Rags, Bones and Tea Leaves by Julian Benson 3/5
This story was leagues above the other stories in this collection. If you were at all interested in this collection I'd say skip the first two and just buy this story on it's own. The characters were actually well fleshed out and the premise was well-executed.

[LiteraryLeisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

**Edit
Full review now on my blog: http://literaryleisha.blogspot.com/20...


God this was boring.
I read the first two stories and couldn't bare going onto the third.
*full review soon*

[Sue Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invaders from beyond by julian benson.
'Alien invasion' is one of the oldest devices in modern science fiction, dating back to Wells’ The War of the Worlds. It spoke to the paranoia of mid-twentieth-century life, spawning such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Thing. Why do so many damn aliens want to invade Earth anyway? And who’s going to stop them? Is this going to take long? Only I was going to go to the pub later.
A good read. Little slow in places but readable. 4*.

[Katya Vinogradova · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just can't with this book anymore... I read the first story (out of three) and you can see my review below. And while that one was sort of okay, it left a very sour taste and I just can't bring myself to read the other two stories. The images left in my mind by those disgusting plant aliens are so vivid and repugnant that I can't even look at this cover, which I previously enjoyed. And yes, I realize that the other two stories have nothing to do with plant zombies, but from what I can surmise of the other reviews for this title, those stories aren't worth torturing myself over.

A digital copy of this book was provided to me by Rebellion Publishing via NetGalley.

I had trouble getting into the story. I really wanted to but I felt there were too many pieces of information missing. I had to read descriptions and reviews to understand what was happening - and that's not a good sign. Usually I prefer to know as little as possible about the book I'm reading so that I can experience the story as it unfolds. This story unfolded... strangely. The narration was all over the place - bits of dialogue interspersed with the narrators thoughts, feelings and random observations. With everything written in the same tone I couldn't tell the events apart from the narrator's reflections. Up until the end of the story I couldn't tell half the characters apart, perhaps because the names were also confusing? Like, Kelvin was a girl, and Jost was a guy, and Clone was... I'm still not sure but I wanna say guy.
You see what I mean by all over the place and confusing?
That being said, the story itself was quite good. It's not easy to find a new way of spinning an alien invasion, and I believe that plant-aliens invading a garden center in England is a new take on the genre. I remember reading about how the English love their gardens, so an attack on their favorite pastime could be catastrophic, right?
The action was a bit choppy but good as it got going, and I loved the ragtag group of garden center employees taking a stand against the plane-aliens. Even though I couldn't tell the characters apart, I cared about them as a unit and didn't want them to get too beat up. I could have finished the story faster if the action didn't pick up right before my bedtime, and I feared the worst and didn't want to go to bed sad and terrified.
I think this story could be a great basis for a screenplay - in fact it reads more like a screenplay than a novella. If Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wanted to make another alien movie, they could use this story for sure.

[J.B. Rockwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years, Abaddon’s built a reputation for focusing on the different, and publishing stories that are simultaneously weird, wonderful, and offbeat. When you grab an Abaddon book, you never really know what you’re going to find inside it, but you know it’s gonna be good. Maybe a little gross, probably a little creepy, but gross-creepy good.

Invaders from Beyond offers up three novellas generally arranged around an alien invasion theme. Don’t let the awesome spaceship cover confuse you, though. Strange things are afoot inside these pages. If you came here looking for the same old Independence Day remake, or big thugs beating up on cute, innocent little ETs, you’re barking up the wrong tree, my man.

Colin Sinclair’s Midnight in the Garden Center of Good and Evil is a tour de force of WTF, with a crew of bumbling heroes pitted against pod people who’ve set up shop in a garden center. Of good and evil...

Tim Major’s Blighters are, well, gross, honestly and toothily terrifying yet oddly tragic. Major’s alien incarnation sparks complex emotions—love, fear, even pity—in his characters, reminding us to be wary of judging books by their covers.

Julian Benson’s Rags, Bones and Tea Leaves defies explanation. It’s a ghost story, a monster story, a murder mystery rife with prognostication and regret.

I loved all three novellas in this collection and the alien invasion theme. Sinclair’s quirky humor had me laughing, Major’s creeping around looking for monsters made me tuck up under a blanket and keep glancing over my shoulder, and Benson’s moody mystery left me slightly sad, but in a good way.

Snap this book up if you want something different. Snap it up even if you don’t because you really do, you just don’t know it yet.

[Nat · Rating 2 out of 5]

All 3 stories had the potential for me as I am a sucker for alien first contact stories. All three stories fell flat for me. This book was like the B movies of old which I am not a fan of. The humor consisted of one-liners and the characters were cardboard cut out cliches. If I had grown up watching B movies I would like to be more forgiving. 1.7/5 Midnight by Colin Sinclair was too slow at first and gradually crammed too much towards the end. 2.3/5. Blighters by Tim Major. I liked none of the characters and the Alien conquering the world was weird and Becky was written like a man. The humor was so lame in this one as well. Maybe this was the point as humanity was turning to junkies without anyone realizing. Still, who would think the lead believing Canada was governed be king was funny? Overall all 1.5/5.
Rag Bones and Tea Leaves by Tim Major: Just a pretentious Moses allegory story, 0.3/5

[Mark Smith-briggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Invaders From Beyond is a below average collection of three sci-fi stories in which aliens play a key role. Billed as book for fans of Attack the Block and At World's End it kicks off with a strange, rambling introduction from the editor and never really recovers.
Of the stories on offer only the Julian Benson's Rags, Bone and Tea Leaves is worth the investment.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

*thank you to Netgalley and Rebellion for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

2 stars.
This just didn't interest me. I like SciFi so it wasn't that. The stories just felt lacking and I wasn't so interested. I do really like the cover thought.

[Rebecca Finch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Find my full review at: https://a-readers-life.co.uk/review-i...

[Jen Juenke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of 3 short stories of aliens. I thought the stories fit well together and the last story left me wanting more!

[Stephen D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a very good collection of three science-fiction stories. All three authors, Julian Benson, Tim Major, and Colin Sinclair wrote very good stories that kept me anticipating the next page.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three different tales, one Sci Fi theme.
Enjoyed the book/tales. Good entertaining, sometimes funny read.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Invaders From Beyond caught me with its tagline, and I do rather like Attack The Block and The World’s End. What we have here is three tales of the unknown, of aliens among us, of something rather weird, all of which I like to look for in my SF, especially in the shorter variety on offer here. The main question is whether these stories hit the mark, or if the expectations given by that tagline are just too high to meet…

Midnight in the Garden Centre of Good and Evil by Colin Sinclair
This is the first story in this collection, and as the title says, it’s set in a garden centre. A strange venue for alien invasion, that’s for sure, and given the way the story starts with staff banter around a Friday night delivery event, it’s a little weird. It’s also very British, and, until about halfway through, somewhat disjointed and certainly not shouting ‘alien invasion’ to you. However, when the story takes a turn into the expected alien territory, it does so quickly, and before you know it things are full-on strange. The ending is also quick to come about, though it is somewhat satisfying. However, this isn’t an easy read, mainly due to the fact that you just don’t really know what is happening until it’s right there, and the characters are a little all over the place. There’s also a lack of exposition for both characters and situation, and explanations fall woefully short of the target.

Blighters by Tim Major
Blighters is more a short story about Becky, our main character, than explicitly about the alien Blighters of the title. However, don’t let that fool you, this has some great aliens in the Blighters – they’re highly sought after and the effect they have on humans, essentially a natural high, means that violence will be committed to keep them hidden. It’s this we learn through Becky’s eyes whilst she deals with the loss of her father some years before and has a hatred for many people due to the apparent cover up of his death. In the end this all comes together nicely, and it has the added bonus of some nice closure to the story.

Rags, Bones and Tea Leaves by Julian Benson
When Hal and his mother move to a new apartment in an estate of flats, Hal and his new friend, Shahid, take to following a local mysterious Rag and Bone Man that goes around collecting unwanted items due to rumours of his involvement in a death on the estate some years back. From there we have a strange tale of this mysterious man and the connection Hal has with him, and the truths he learns along the way. Set in the late 60’s the prose brings the era to life, and while it is an interesting story, it is very slow moving without any real push to keep you reading other than the explanations for what, exactly, is going on.

Now, Invaders From Beyond is a strange one. It’s the kind of book I’d pick up if I saw it on the shelf due to the cover art and blurbs, but it’s one that fails to meet these high expectations almost across the board. I couldn’t compare this collection to Attack the Block or The World’s End, and even the title is a misnomer. While the first story, Midnight in the Garden Centre of Good and Evil, is the closest of the three to an alien invasion tale, it’s unfortunately too disjointed to really work as that. Blighters and Rags, Bones and Tea Leaves are both better stories – the latter probable the best of the two – but they are not ‘alien invasion’ ones, more in the ‘aliens among us’ category.

It’s hard to recommend this collection based on what its ambitious title is telling you because, quite simply, it isn’t. However, that’s not to say it’s not worth reading – two of these stories are certainly interesting and are strange enough to work. It may well be worth checking out the stories individually, though a brief look at online retailers lets you know you buying this collection is the more economical choice.

[Kate (Looking Glass Reads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Invaders From Beyond is a book comprised of three stories. “Midnight at the Garden Centre of Good and Evil” is the longest of the three, taking up nearly half of the book. The other two stories are “Blighters” and “Rags, Bones and Tea Leaves.”

Alien invasions make for great, time tested science fiction, and are a genre I love reading. However, none of these stories held my attention for very long, and, at times, I found myself skimming without quite realizing. Many of the characters felt a bit flat. The jumping about in time within the first few chapters of “Midnight at the Garden Centre of Good and Evil” felt misplaced and didn’t allow any time to truly connect with the main character or care about his plights happening currently or in the past.

In all, this was a book built on a great premise but, as a whole, didn’t manage to fully deliver upon it. Perhaps I will revisit this collection at some point in the future and see if opinions on any of the tales have changed.

[Craig Pearson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three stories from British authors. I enjoy reading science fiction but most of the space opera style. These works were difficult to read and I finished none of them. It is very difficult to describe the writing style used so I won't.