Alien Abductions

by Martin H. Greenberg (Editor / Contributor), Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Contributor), Alan Dean Foster (Contributor)

For the first time in one collection are the fictional speculations of the top sci-fi writers--11 UFO tales told from the viewpoint of both the aliens and the humans they abduct. Includes stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Peter Crowther, Lawrence Watt-Evans, and others.

Genres: Short Stories

309 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 2, 1999

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of eleven original stories dealing, as the title promises, with alien abduction. I enjoyed the stories by Alan Dean Foster, Michelle West, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, but the stand-out is One Brown Mouse by Gary A. Braunbeck, one of my all-time favorites in any genre. It's a great story, and I recommend it highly.

[S.E. Martens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of eleven short stories, each having to do with alien abduction. It pretty much delivers what it promises, although a few stories stood out for me.

My favourites were:

Work in Progress by Michelle West. This story weaves the jumbled and lost memories of a heavy drinking party girl into a surprisingly tender inter-species love story. West's beautiful, descriptive writing really makes this a piece to be savored.

In Toobychubbies by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, exhausted parents finally get a break from their toddlers with a new TV show about brightly coloured, babbling aliens (does everyone remember Teletubbies...?) The story is acutely unnerving, almost horror. Very good.

Gary A. Braunbeck's One Brown Mouse was my favourite of the collection. Levon is the survivor of a car crash in which he lost the love of his life. He attends a grief support group once a month. The eccentric mathematician-turned-counselor obsessively twirls a green and red magician's coin and insists the members take turns getting to know his pet mouse, Tiresias. Levon remains silent and brooding in these meetings, until one day he unexpectedly blurts out: 'I don't belong here; she's not really dead, you know.' One Brown Mouse is unlike anything else in the collection, a study of parallel - sorry, simultaneous universes, perception and reality.

[Amélie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've only read Michelle West's short story.

It is an original take on the why of alien abductions. The story is a bit confusing at first as the main character has lost her memory, but all makes sense at the end with the final revelation of the alien intentions. I like the ending but I did not really enjoyed the story itself.