ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) writes:

In article <N9SGP.106255$3te7.86947@fx03.iad>,
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 3/31/2025 2:28 PM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

Zero for five here.

"Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber fits this theme perfectly.

50,000 years ago, the 250,000 mutineers and crew from the "Dahak" landed >>>on Earth. Over the centuries they killed off or assimilated the >>>Neanderthals.

Hogan had the same plot years before Weber in Inherit the Stars.

That was a great debut! Unfortunately, it was also Hogan's best book.

_The Genesis Machine_, _Thrice Upon a Time_ and _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_ were all fine books. The later stuff, not so much.

TTFT was rather precient in these days of soi disant AI.

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Christian Weisgerber wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

Iain M. Banks' _Culture_ novels have this all the time, with the
galaxy populated by plenty of humanoids and the Culture frequently
inserting its agents on backward planets. Including Earth at one
point.

In _Perry Rhodan_, Atlan kept passing for a local on Terra on and
off for 10,000 years.

In the movies, _Under the Skin_ (2013) with Scarlett Johansson.

IIRC, in S. Andrew Swann's _Moreau_ novels the Race agents _barely_
pass as some sort of misshapen, presumably gene-engineered humans.

Interesting. An "agents on backward worlds" allegory arguably acts as a tentative rationale for Banks' titular choice of "Culture" for his
series.

It appears alien "body snatchers" are excluded from this thread. The
Concern's operatives in TRANSITION by Banks are passed over. Also
intentionally omitted are Perry Rhodan's Mind Snatchers:

<https://www.perryrhodan.us/summaries/6#>
<https://www.perryrhodan.us/summaries/7#>

Earlier, in another thread, Ted talks about PR's temporal discontinuity,
while you note how it happens at "round numbers" (#50, 100, 150, ...).
It seems short story arcs, each two to three novellas long, comprise
PR's earliest efforts, as illustrated by the two story Mind Snatcher arc
cited above. As you more-or-less said a while ago, somewhere around
PR200, PR's propitious popularity out of the blue motivated its "garage
band" to elongate story arcs.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

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On Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:47:18 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

1968's _Escape to Witch Mountain_. The movies were hit and miss, but the >novel was a favorite.

I missed that (I don't generally like kid-aimed PG live-action films)
but saw /Race to Witch Mountain/ (the trailer suggested, correctly,
that Dwayne Johnson would make it quite watchable).
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

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On Mon, 31 Mar 2025 18:34:05 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 3/31/2025 2:28 PM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

Zero for five here.

"Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber fits this theme perfectly.

50,000 years ago, the 250,000 mutineers and crew from the "Dahak" landed
on Earth. Over the centuries they killed off or assimilated the >Neanderthals.

I once read a short story (?) where what we call "humans" were in fact
... Martians. But I don't think the natives they displaced were
Neandertals.

Been a long time, though, so my memory may not be all that accurate.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

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In article <932oujlf1mo7e2l2g1aq079fljrsea4nd9@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 31 Mar 2025 18:34:05 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 3/31/2025 2:28 PM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

Zero for five here.

"Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber fits this theme perfectly.

50,000 years ago, the 250,000 mutineers and crew from the "Dahak" landed
on Earth. Over the centuries they killed off or assimilated the >Neanderthals.

I once read a short story (?) where what we call "humans" were in fact
... Martians. But I don't think the natives they displaced were
Neandertals.

Been a long time, though, so my memory may not be all that accurate.

That sounds like a H. Beam Piper story ... checking ... "Genesis" (<https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?61690>). Note that his entire Paratime Police series was set in a timeline of a successful
colonization of Earth from Mars.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. -------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

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Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

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jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

1968's _Escape to Witch Mountain_. The movies were hit and miss, but the novel was a favorite.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 3/31/2025 2:28 PM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

Zero for five here.

"Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber fits this theme perfectly.

50,000 years ago, the 250,000 mutineers and crew from the "Dahak" landed
on Earth. Over the centuries they killed off or assimilated the >Neanderthals.

Hogan had the same plot years before Weber in Inherit the Stars.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:24:39 -0000 (UTC),
wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

Going back a few decades, I would also bring up Julian May’s Saga of >Pliocene Exile (1980-84), written from the perspective of 2112 AD when
Earth is but one planet of the Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu,
but for nearly a century has been sending recidivists through a
one-way time machine -- where it turns out that a race of
intergalactic nonhumans is already in occupation, and the plot
strongly implies that descendants of these people, mating with the
human exiles, survived 6 million years to become our ancestors (and
also the origin of the Tuatha de Danaan). At the climax of book 4, THE >ADVERSARY, the humans and the exotics build a reverse time gate to get
back to -- or in the case of some of the exotics, to escape to --
2112, and the following books (INTERVENTION et seq.) make it clear
that those who returned were somehow reintegrated in modern
society. Unlike the present-day exotics of the Galactic Milieu, the
exotics of 6 million years ago are essentially humanoid in appearance,
except for being very tall and allergic to iron.

One of my great favorites. And for several years I used "Aiken Drum"
as my pseudonym and only changed it when I learned of a British
pedophile who was going into the early forums seeking meetups with
underage kids he hoped to victimize who was also using "Aiken Drum" as
his screen name.

I think my favorite portion of the books is when Drum shared what he
did to get exiled through the time gate. (It involved painting a leaky
dam to make it look that a 60' tall man was whizzing from the dam)

Yup - another Julian May fan here. Regretably she passed in 2017.

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On 3/31/25 12:28, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Stories About Aliens Posing as Humans

Aliens living among us... and vice versa.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-stories-about-aliens-posing-as-humans/

I'm late to the game here. We have been traveling, among other
distractions e.g. flying Estes rockets with #2 grandson.

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
Nope

The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Nope

Ingathering by Zenna Henderson
Yes and no. I read "The People" which is part of Ingathering. I also saw
an ABC movie of the week based on several things by Henderson.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
Nope. I'm not really a fan of Japanese SF.

Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! by Manta Aisora and illustrated by Koin
Nope

--
----------------

Dave Scruggs
Senior Software Engineer - Lockheed Martin, et. al (mostly Retired)
Captain - Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Board of Directors - Boulder Creek Fire Protection District (What was I thinking?)

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