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Lädt ... Fair Trade: An Alien Invasion Storyvon Mackey Chandler
Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.  Tom-e | Dec 26, 2021 |  keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Most of my writing is in a series people seem to enjoy but there is a constant small crowd who say: I'd really like your take on an alien invasion story. Well this is for them. The bulk of the aliens come to Earth stories assume their vast superiority, sometimes invincibility. Sometimes they suddenly appear on the white house lawn dictating terms. I have yet to see one with them appearing at the Kremlin or Canberra which seems rather parochial. Other times they are so advanced they quarantine the Earth or Solar System without discussion because we are such barbarian slime-balls. They may alternately be impossible to talk to and attack without mercy. All these assume they come with a plan and the means to carry it out. Our own age of exploration showed things happen much less orderly. Islands and natives were happened upon while seeking someplace else or even because a storm or miscalculation left the ship lost. In that case there is no plan but survival with the assets at hand. As with any game remember that turnabout is fair play. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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In a recent blog, Nathan Lowell pointed out that easy independent publishing on Internet platforms has shown that there are substantial audiences for authors whose work would have a hard time finding an agent and would likely never be picked up by dead-tree publishers with editorial departments and advertising budgets. Mackey Chandler’s science fiction is a case in point. Before Fair Trade, he had already published 18 novels in two ongoing series. He is not a world-class writer, but he does tell entertaining stories set in future worlds that are more nuanced than one might expect. His stories might have found their way into pulp magazines or fanzines in the mid-twentieth century, but without the Internet there would be no place for them in a publishing world dominated by six companies and a decreasing number of brick-and-mortar bookstores. But I am happy to read them at a price that does not break my bank. In Fair Trade, a starship enters our near-future solar system with serious mechanical problems. They have only met two other space-faring races, neither of whom are friendly. When their exploratory drone is shot down, they don’t expect much better from humans. Earth’s many governments view them with suspicion but recognize the advantages they might gain if they could acquire some alien technology. Some of their technology is indeed superior to human stuff, but some of it isn’t. Duncan injects wry humor as we watch both sides misinterpret each other’s culture. Most Earth governments would like a monopoly on the aliens, but such secrets are hard to keep. The story develops around three alien-human encounters: one with a retired black-ops soldier in Alaska who provides them with some good security advice, another with a car dealer in Florida who protects them from a gator attack, and a third with an 80-year-old amateur astronomer who shares his discovery with amateur astronomer around the world. It is just the kind of story I would have been happy to read in a copy of Galaxy in my long-ago youth. 3.5 stars, and I look forward to the next volume. (