James Bell 18 min read

Under a diamond-studded sky, the alien Threlkeld and his daughter Gelerie lie in their cramped craft, their forms warped out of all proportion to it, the galaxy's most unique imitation of humans.

James Bell's 1963 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a strange, evocative story of aliens masquerading as human on a delicate mission, told from their own disquieting viewpoint, in a well-turned golden-age piece that finds unease and wonder in the gap between the alien and the human.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

18 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).