The best First-Contact novel ever written? You decide!

Buy it. Read it. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Share quotable quotes with people on Facebook.

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]

It’s been called the best First Contact novel that readers have ever enjoyed.

It contains scientifically plausible avian aliens, accurate scientific advances, and humans who are determined to literally make a better world for themselves.

And lots of other cool stuff, besides.

Yours to own for the low, low price of $2.99USD at Smashwords! Buy it now!

I’ve been Troped!

Sorry, my dear peeps, but callmegallifreya is currently best follower for taking the time and the effort to detail all the tropes they could find in The Amity Incident

Thank you and bless.

I understand linking back from those references is going to take more time than you might have. This is already a mighty effort.

Challenge #00800-B069: Back Off, We’re Celebrating!

“Light blue touch paper! Run like Hell!”

It looked like a cylinder with a cone at one end and a stick at the other. The purpose of the string at the stick end was just as mysterious as the cone. It was painted in toxic stripes, therefore it was dangerous.

“What is this?” said T’reka.

“Humans use it to celebrate,” said Susan. “They’re rockets designed to explode. For art.”

Nobody on Amity could side-eye like a Numidid. T’reka gave her a classic one. “Making rockets explode is an accident, not an art.”

“We use them to paint the night sky in coloured light,” Susan re-explained. She was well used to this after decades of working with T’reka. “They explode on purpose to do this.”

“Loud noises and sudden lights. Of course this is a human entertainment. I think I know the answer, but I must ask. What are you celebrating with these?”

“Uh… the fact that we can make fireworks now…?”

“Called it,” T’reka muttered in her own tongue. “Have you set out a warning for the Numidid population?”

“Sort of? We called it an invitation, but we did say there’d be loud noises and flashing lights. And screaming humans.”

“Many will observe from a safe distance.” She peered at the smudged label on the tube. “What are these words?”

“Light blue touch paper. Run like hell.”

“How very human,” T’reka snarked.

[Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

The Amity Incident

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]

Get your copy of The Amity Incident today!

Challenge #00784 - B053: Water Worship

The first thing the humans of Amity made when they reached the beach was the pipeline. The second thing they made was surfboards.

From the Journals of T'reka the Inquisitive:

Play is seemingly an important to these dangerous creatures as work is. I have personally witnessed their emergence onto the beachfront with a mixture of trepidation and fascination.

Their work was to build the pipeline previously mentioned. Their play… immediately followed. Some brought colourful discs with them for what I posit to be some form of weapon play [CENSOR ALERT: REFERENCE TO ALARMING FOOTAGE. File reference: Frisbee] Some made alarmingly temporary and illogical sand structures.

And some, puzzlingly, hurried away on their ungulates, only to return with baffling equipment.

It resembled an ovoid board, curved like a leaf and possessing at least one fin. It, too, was in bright colours. Its human bearers were also bedecked in toxic colours. A sensible warning for all life to not eat them, lest their bodies poison the entire ecology.

Each of these boards were strapped to the humans by the means of a long tether.

The humans then proceeded with their equipment into the water. They used these strange planks as impromptu boats, paddling out above highly risky depths. Even to the point of piloting through the waves.

At risk to my life, I documented what happened next. [CENSOR ALERT: REFERENCE TO SUICIDALLY DANGEROUS PRACTICES] One human in the group matched speeds with a wave and then stood upright on their board!

She made it dance on the waves before tumbling to what should have been her doom… and yet emerged alive and -I hesitate to say- laughing.

This scientist cannot fathom the meaning of this ritual. Is it a sacrifice to their ocean gods? A display of vitality and fitness? A mating display? Or is it used as a means to defuse their perpetual destructive rage?

Of course, I am keeping my distance and doing my utmost to remain undiscovered as I examine this bizarre and terrifying ritual.

[Muse food remaining: 19. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]

Click the cover, it will take you to where you can own this! Or, of you don’t like paying for things, enter my followers competition for a chance to win it for FREE!

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]

BUY IT NOW!

Numedid Meets the Birds of Earth, Part 3

Numedid meet the Penguins, finding them to be practicing Marxists with the capacity to utterly conquer the known galaxy, but have held off because they “want to see how the whole human thing turns out first”.

(#00762 - B031)

[AN: Not gonna lie, my first thought was with the Penguins of the Madagascar movies… resisting said temptation with my entire might.]

Humans called them Emperor penguins. They had a much more complicated name for themselves that T'reka the Wanderer could never pronounce, but they were kind enough to allow her the luxury of calling them ‘Emperor’.

“We are bird-kind,” said the Matriarch. “We have no ill-will to bird-kind. The bipedal, bald mammals… we watch them. They are kind enough to us. We share… planet for now.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Numidid.

“We share much. We share the cold. We share the nurturing and feeding of the young. We share the fish. It is no great stretch to share a world. No need for us to conquer the humans. They will exterminate themselves in time. Or leave. Either way, we are patient. We have always been patient. Winter ends.”

That was two words with an ocean’s full of meaning. Winter ends. The dark times of the season, or the dark times of the epoch, or the dark times at all… would end in the fullness of time. All the Emperors had to do was endure.

They were prepared, if it came to a fight, of course. They were Emperors. They were prepared for anything. They had a camouflage flock up on the ice to appease the humans who came to make documentaries… but in the caves underneath Antarctica…

It was a Survivalist’s wet dream. Shelter, facilities, factories, farms… everything a nation of penguins could ever want.

Including weapons.

T'reka fluffed out her feathers on instinct. She was in the company of dangerous Birds.

“There’s hope for the humans,” soothed the Matriarch. “If they ever get too unruly, we might have to step in.”

Considering that the Emperors had already allowed the humans to slaughter whales, overfish to the point of global ocean breakdown, and dumped tons of plastic in the waters… T'reka had to wonder what that fatal line would be.

[Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]