The Ragged World

The alien Hefn were not especially interested in humanity when they came to Earth; they returned to recover their shipmates who had been left on Earth centuries before—beings who had passed into human legend as "hobs" and "tomtar." Although all were affected by their arrival, few people actually encountered the Hefn. Those who did were changed. These are their stories.

For Carrie Sharpless, the Hefn intrude upon her life when a chance question on a midterm exam uncovers her student Terry's strange encounter. When Jenny Shepherd stumbles across a "hob" amid the moors of Yorkshire, the resulting interplay of legend with everyday existence reshapes her own life, while in "Tiny Tango" ("a thunderstorm of a novella" said the New York Review of Science Fiction), Nancy Sandford's AIDS-afflicted life is redeemed through the intervention of the aliens.

​Spun around human emotions, threaded through with a deep love for the Earth, The Ragged World weaves these stories into a beautiful depiction of humanity, a richly worded tapestry of this ragged world in which we live.