Kate says… Will humans travel to strange, yet habitable planets? Will aliens they encounter fit the mold of humans with funny-looking foreheads that’s popular in so much scifi? Yes! to the first question. No! to the second. Here’s a story to prove it, a long novella.
Four astronauts scouting a planet for possible colonization encounter vast, inexplicable spheres headed to the same world. They race ahead and crash. Will they find inhabitants that are hostile? Friendly? Indifferently dangerous? Or maybe trees like huge, vertical cucumbers on a lavender-tinted world? I enjoyed all the answers.
I love how this story challenges my expectations. Along with the frustrated commander, I stomp my foot. How can aliens ignore me? I don’t read a lot of stories centered on a Frenchman in space, but now I know I should. The two women astronauts are also engaging, and one suffers a most amazing discovery. (No spoilers here.) Combined with artificial intelligences showing remarkable capabilities, this story is delightful.
Here’s my exclusive scoop. The name of the spaceship, Suppose We, intrigued me so much I contacted Geoff Nelder to ask: How did you chose that name?
Being a rather wayward writer, I needed a name different from the usual name of a hero, or grandiose action like challenger, enterprise, victory etc. So I was scrolling through the dictionary, thinking: “Suppose we have locus, projectile… no. Suppose we have dart, arrow…no. Suppose we… suppose we. That’s it!”
I can also share how an important butterfly arrived:
I wrote at a Greek writing retreat on the isolated peninsular of Methana. A butterfly landed on my laptop. It demanded to be in the story.
But you’ll have to read the story to find out more, and I recommend that you do.
Available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2W5aJ2g (5/23/2019)
Tags: First Contact, Alien Invasion, Colonization, Spaceship, Aliens, Artificial Intelligence, book recommendation, book review
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