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Alien Places: An Imagined World Tour with an Alien Visitor
An alien arrives at the International Space Station and immediately makes a case for renaming our planet. It’s somewhat unclear why the alien is here, so the United Nations send Atul, an employee working on environmental issues and happens to have had minimal astronaut training, to show the alien around.
Armed with a tablet loaded with quotes, songs and films to entertain and enrich the alien’s experience, Atul shows it ten places that he hopes will give the alien a sense of the key issues facing human Cairo, Los Angeles, Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, Queensland, Geneva, Amazon Rainforest, Easter Island, Challenger Deep and Antarctica.
No subject is off limits as the pair cover a broad range of concepts, raised as relevant in each of the ten places.
As the tour progresses, we learn that Alien’s character is far more nuanced than a wildly advanced species, better than humanity in every way. It has flaws. What if the alien is sarcastic and stroppy? What if the alien is somewhat impressionable? What if the alien steals? What if the alien absorbs and imitates the bad as well as the good in humanity? What if it wants to fit in? What if it sticks a gun to its head?
Environmental issues are raised during the world tour by Atul, along with his suggested solutions. Perhaps rather more convincingly, solutions to those environmental issues also come from Alien. By referring to how things are done on its home planet, we learn that another world is not only possible, but already happening on trillions of other planets across the multiverse, thank you very much.
Armed with a tablet loaded with quotes, songs and films to entertain and enrich the alien’s experience, Atul shows it ten places that he hopes will give the alien a sense of the key issues facing human Cairo, Los Angeles, Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, Queensland, Geneva, Amazon Rainforest, Easter Island, Challenger Deep and Antarctica.
No subject is off limits as the pair cover a broad range of concepts, raised as relevant in each of the ten places.
As the tour progresses, we learn that Alien’s character is far more nuanced than a wildly advanced species, better than humanity in every way. It has flaws. What if the alien is sarcastic and stroppy? What if the alien is somewhat impressionable? What if the alien steals? What if the alien absorbs and imitates the bad as well as the good in humanity? What if it wants to fit in? What if it sticks a gun to its head?
Environmental issues are raised during the world tour by Atul, along with his suggested solutions. Perhaps rather more convincingly, solutions to those environmental issues also come from Alien. By referring to how things are done on its home planet, we learn that another world is not only possible, but already happening on trillions of other planets across the multiverse, thank you very much.
198 pages, Paperback
Published October 4, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 3, 2020
Please note: I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review
I really enjoyed this book! I'm very passionate about helping the environment and reducing the impact of climate change anyway so there was no convincing from the author needed, however I thought this was such a fantastically original way of doing so. I haven't read a book quite like this before, and the author blended non-fiction and fiction perfectly to really demonstrate the devastating effects of climate change we're experiencing and what we need to do as a race to fix it.
I particularly appreciated the humour of the book, which worked very well and didn't undermine the more serious aspects of the book. It drives a very important point home and, whilst I started to feel the environmental anxiety creep in whilst I was reading, the books ends in a positive way that leaves you feeling like you can actually do something about the situation. It also draws upon popular films and songs to explain the human race to the alien involved in the virtual tour, and I loved how these were so introspective to read (and I felt I even understood us better after reading them, despite being a human myself!).
The only thing I would have changed is the layout and formatting of the book as I felt it could have had wider spacing between paragraphs to break up the blocks of text, however this is quite a minor issue and I didn't feel that it affected the overall quality of the book in any way.
You can read my full review here:
https://pagesplacesandplates.com/2020...
I really enjoyed this book! I'm very passionate about helping the environment and reducing the impact of climate change anyway so there was no convincing from the author needed, however I thought this was such a fantastically original way of doing so. I haven't read a book quite like this before, and the author blended non-fiction and fiction perfectly to really demonstrate the devastating effects of climate change we're experiencing and what we need to do as a race to fix it.
I particularly appreciated the humour of the book, which worked very well and didn't undermine the more serious aspects of the book. It drives a very important point home and, whilst I started to feel the environmental anxiety creep in whilst I was reading, the books ends in a positive way that leaves you feeling like you can actually do something about the situation. It also draws upon popular films and songs to explain the human race to the alien involved in the virtual tour, and I loved how these were so introspective to read (and I felt I even understood us better after reading them, despite being a human myself!).
The only thing I would have changed is the layout and formatting of the book as I felt it could have had wider spacing between paragraphs to break up the blocks of text, however this is quite a minor issue and I didn't feel that it affected the overall quality of the book in any way.
You can read my full review here:
https://pagesplacesandplates.com/2020...
Displaying 1 of 1 review