Tag: aliens

Constituent Service by John  Scalzi (Science Fiction)

A short (152 pages) offering from master humorist and speculator John Scalzi about what it would be like to be the Community Liaison in an alien majority district. Fresh graduate Ashley Perrin is human, unlike most of the constituents she serves in the role. The variety of aliens with their shapes (one looks like a potted plant), sounds, behaviors, and preferences are legion and … somehow actually believable? I don’t know how Scalzi does that, but I’m happy he does. Our protagonist is calm, cool, collected and chock full of witty ripostes. I loved that I got to laugh out loud often — a lovely palate cleanser in a lot of bleak reading I seem to be doing these days. The action takes place over a few days. All of the various complaints Ashley handles in her first week at the office pipeline into one extra-terrestrial powder keg with some brilliant just-in-time intervention. The whole thing was (literally) a blast, with quite a charming ending.

Thank you to Subterranean Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 30th, 2025.

The Experiment by Rebecca Stead (Middle Grade Fiction)

Nathan has known from an early age that he and his parents are from another planet and that they are part of a secret experiment whose parameters are unclear. But things are starting to go wrong — some of the other alien families are disappearing, his family is being called back to the mothership, and his parents are looking pretty worried. What happens next is one twist after another in this absolutely satisfying middle grade science fiction story.

I love Rebecca Stead. She has that rare ability to write about topics with depth and make them equally accessible and appealing to both children and adults. Her books are all well-written (Newberry Award winner), weird in the best possible way, and never even close to trite or formulaic. The blurb likens it to A Wrinkle in Time and — as a long time and HUGE Wrinkle fan — I can lend my expert agreement! It’s a coming-of-age book about a young boy who is put into a very difficult situation and manages to be a hero because he can’t bear to not do the right thing regardless of the possible cost. There are no insipid moral messages (I’m sorry but “being kind” will not solve most real problems!), but there is plenty of (young boy) reflection, confusion, and eventual understanding to help grow a child into the adult they want to be. This is the kind of book that will both entertain and educate a young audience. And it was fun for this (much older) audience, too.

Thank you to Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 16th, 2025.

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune (Sci Fi)

Aliens (non traditional, portrayed with depth), conspiracy theories, cults, and secret government facilities populate this action packed speculative fiction story with a lovely (and at times quite steamy) gay romance slowly percolating through. Beautifully woven themes of loneliness, love, grief and recovery suffuse the narrative. This is my third Klune book — each was completely different from the others, and all were creative in the way I found old style sci-fi to be, yet firmly rooted in the character development and personal experience that draws me to fiction. He has a very natural writing style — I get hooked at the very beginning and completely forget that I’m reading a book. More like I’m sitting in a comfy room listening to a storyteller bind me with sparkly spells.

In his own words, Klune is “gay as balls” and this is clearly reflected in the books he writes. I’ve never been drawn to specifically LGBQ+ fiction as it isn’t something I’m drawn to, but I like his matter-of-fact fiction where characters are individuals that continue personal development throughout the story, and increase my exposure to human experience significantly. Some of the (quite detailed) sex scenes took me a bit by surprise but I definitely learned a lot! As a complete aside, I did enjoy the little digs at veganism. I often feel surrounded by vegans, and it’s refreshing to hear someone unashamedly express a love for bacon and the superiority of meat over a lentil stew. 🙂

My only complaint is about the pace — I found the beginning a little too slow. It felt like the characters were repeating, rather than developing. Once I hit the 35% mark, the pace stepped up to something that worked a lot better for me. In other words, skim if you have to to get to where things start really moving.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on February 4th, 2025

Translation State by Ann Leckie (Science Fiction)

Translation State is a standalone story in the (beloved) universe of the Ancillary Justice series. You don’t need to have read those first, but they are wonderful, so if you haven’t — do so now! Leckie’s universe is populated by any number of richly delineated alien species along with numerous human based cultures, far flung across the universe. In this story, three completely unrelated characters are drawn together through a bizarre set of circumstances and manage to have an impact on the way things have always been done. Enae — the reluctant diplomat tasked with tracking down a fugitive from 200 years ago; Reet, an adopted mechanic who struggles with intense (and definitely unacceptable) urges that he doesn’t understand; and Qven, a juvenile form of a manufactured species designed to translate between humans and the mysterious Presgers — absolutely necessary to preserving the fragile peace between the two races.

I love the way Leckie writes rich interior (alien) lives while simultaneously illustrating the complexity of multiple, variegated, worlds. I loved her description of the process for “raising” the translators — as alien as you can get and described from Qven’s very nuanced and real perspective. This story includes a fully fleshed out description of how to challenge cultural expectations when some aspects of the problem are (currently) immutable while others are simply rigidly accepted ways of doing things. The teasing apart of the situation and dawning awareness of what solutions are possible is brilliant and a skill that I wish would be more developed in us all.

As an aside, Leckie has a great time playing with pronouns. While occasionally single characters are referred to as “they” (which I hate), there are several other labels (sie, e, he, she) which I admit I couldn’t always differentiate but were meaningful to the characters — more importantly though, there was a wide range of pronouns which people sometimes had to correct but never got strident about.

Ann Leckie may well be my favorite current science fiction writer — in addition to writing engaging stories populated with realistic and diverse characters, she doesn’t insist on dwelling in constant dystopia and darkness as so many of today’s SF writers do.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 6th, 2023

Jennifer Chan is Missing by Tae Keller (Middle School)

12-year old Mallory Moss is a worrier. She knows that people are really “just a collection of what other people think about us.” So although she thinks her own opinion matters, she is sure that what others think matters even more. And this becomes a problem when she meets Jennifer — the intriguing new girl who enthusiastically and loudly believes in aliens and is never going to fit in with the kids at school.

This is a coming of age story both about an outsider (based on beliefs, not color or ethnicity) and a girl who is intent on always fitting in, even in the face of unfairness, meanness, and outright bullying of others. Excellent writing, good messaging with a variety of sources: parents, religion(s), and introspection.

Some good quotes:
“At services tonight, the rabbi talked about forgiveness, how it’s not only between you and God. He said God exists in the relationships between people, so forgiveness is between you and the person you hurt.”

“Why are people so afraid to believe? Well, Jennifer, maybe because it’s impossibly embarrassing to be proven wrong.”

“It’s so easy to talk bad about someone. It’s so easy to bond over hating someone else. It’s almost scary how naturally it comes.”

“Maybe. But sometimes I think complicated is the word people use when they don’t want to think too hard.”

“Confession isn’t about telling our secrets to God. God already knows. It’s about revealing our true hearts to ourselves, because we can’t know who we are when we’re hiding from who we’ve been.”

“I had to make her understand that this mattered — what people thought had everything to do with who she was. Because how do we know who we are without knowing our place in the world?”

Thank you to Random House Children’s and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 26th, 2022.