Space Opera Fans discussion

Technically this scenario isn’t usually space opera but it can be fun anyway. What’s a good book that has aliens on the planet Earth?

I’ve been hankering to reread Ingathering: The Complete People Stories by Zenna Henderson but it isn’t available in ebook yet. I hear that the publisher is trying to negotiate ebook rights with the author’s estate, but even if that happens there is no digital version so it would have to be scanned, edited for scanner errors, etc. In these stories an alien planet is destroyed, and as many of the people evacuated as possible. Their life boats mostly crash, scattered across the American West somewhere around 1900, possibly a bit earlier.

A more recent one is Bob's Saucer Repair by Jerry Boyd. This one has aliens visiting Earth for various reasons. More than you would expect have mechanical problems with their flying saucers. It’s funny.

Woot! “Long awaited news. NESFA Press has a contract to produce an ebook of Ingathering: The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson. This will hopefully be issued sometime between now and February 2020. Our second book, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson, is on track for release in paper and electronic format in time for Boskone 57, the annual science fiction convention in Boston, February 14-16, 2020. Ingathering has been continuously in print for 25 years.”

I’m having a hard time coming up with books about this topic that aren’t also Alien Invasion stories. It seems like this is far more common in movies, TV and comics, unless I’ve managed to miss whole swaths of books. The only one that readily comes to mind is Escape to Witch Mountain.

Superman is the ur-example, of course, but also J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, as well as Supergirl. I did just read a really good version of the trope recently called Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth!. Then there’s Men in Black, which were better movies.

In movies and TV we have bunches. Oodles. Scads, even. Doctor Who, of course, but also Alien Nation, District 9, ALF, Mork & Mindy, Lilo & Stitch, Ultraman, The Cat from Outer Space, Earth Girls Are Easy, Paul....

Alien invasion would fit too, so
Footfall by Larry Niven.

Armada by Ernest Cline is alien invasion. Not outstanding, more middling, but fits the topic.

One of my old favorites, Way Station is about aliens just passing through, not sticking around.

On one of those end of the year Best SFF lists is The Lesson, which is apparently about aliens settling in the Virgin Islands.