The Aliens

By: Murray Leinster

Narrated by: Ran Alan Ricard

Murray Leinster, whose real name was William Fitzgerald Jenkins, was an award-winning American writer of Science Fiction. Among other things, he is credited with the invention of "parallel universe" stories and in 1956 he won prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Leinster wrote over 1,500 short stories in his career and two of the best, "First Contact" and "The Aliens", deal with humanity's first encounter with an alien race.

In this story, the human race is expanding through the galaxy and so are the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet, war is inevitable. Or is it?

©2010 Jimcin Recordings (P)2010 Jimcin Recordings

Short Story from old but meaningful

Any additional comments?

This is an old first contact story but is still good. How do you think we would communicate with another race in time of need?

Good without being great

In "The Aliens," starfaring humanity has found evidence of an alien race, nicknamed the "Plumies," although nobody has actually seen one. Is war inevitable? Then the starship Nicola encounters a single Plumie ship, and they end up welded together and trapped...as they fall into a star.

Murray Leinster was one of the greats in sci-fi, and his 1945 novella "First Contact" is reckoned among the all-time great stories of interspecies meetings. "The Aliens" (1959) covers many of the same themes and, for those familiar with the first story, this one is a little bit of a let-down. For those wishing to compare, "First Contact" is available on Audible (I haven't listened to it yet).

Ran Alan Ricard's narration is well-done. He delivers the characterizations pretty well (and the nominal 'bad guy' sounds like a whiny loser). My one complaint is that he has a slight lisp (or perhaps it's a production artifact), although I stopped noticing after a few minutes.