Alien Stories
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“A vital voice in the short story, telling us new truths with deep humanity."
–George Saunders
Celebrated Nigerian-born writer E.C. Osondu delivers a short-story collection of nimble dexterity and startling originality in his BOA Short Fiction Prize-winning Alien Stories.
These eighteen startling stories, each centered around an encounter with the unexpected, explore what it means to be an alien. With a nod to the dual meaning of alien as both foreigner and extraterrestrial, Osondu turns familiar science-fiction tropes and immigration narratives on their heads, blending one with the other to call forth a whirlwind of otherness. With wry observations about society and human nature, in shifting landscapes from Africa to America to outer space and back again, Alien Stories breaks down the concept of foreignness to reveal what unites us all as ‘aliens’ within a complex and interconnected universe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Osondu (Voices of America) probes the many meanings of alien in this revelatory collection about immigration and colonization. Blurring and skipping back and forth between science fiction and realism, the stories visit otherworldly planets ("Mark") and a ranch where people of color are paid to enact racist stereotypes for white visitors ("Alien Enactors"). "Feast" portrays an alien lynching, and "All Our Earthly Posessions" describes the terror of migrating from one country to another. In "Debriefing," new immigrants are given a list of instructions on how to survive in America, such as who not to date and the type of parties to avoid. In "Focus Group," humans detail their opinions on aliens, from their skin color to their lack of democracy. While some entries peter out in flat, unremarkable endings, Osondu is at his best when shifting tone and perspective between stories, in one instance imitating the white gaze ("Guess what: these aliens from the African continent had turned out to be not too bad, actually") and, in the next, voicing the object of it (on American cops: "What they don't know makes them angry"). Osondu's impressive range makes this worth a look.
