Today has been a pretty big SF day for me, I started the day by watching the newest Doctor Who special: The Waters of Mars (excellent), followed it up this afternoon by watching the Spanish time-travel thriller Timecrimes (intriguing) and now I'm reviewing one of my favourite SF novels focusing on first contact between alien species - Nor Crystal Tears, by Alan Dean Foster.A big part of what I love about this book is the fact that the main character, Ryo (an insectoid alien called a Thranx), is going through the process of handling a first contact situation with humans, so we get to see ourselves through the eyes of others. There is a similar feel in the William Golding novel The Inheritors (Neanderthal meeting Cro-magnum), and in Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity (tiny little caterpillar-like aliens doing a rescue mission for humans), but this book gives us half of the novel with just the aliens before the humans even appear.
The main character is an agricultural expert who is thrust into the situation involving first contact with a new and bizarre race, and although he is basically a giant Preying Mantis, I actually find him quite relatable. With the trend inn SF focusing on darker and more gritty stories, the simplicity and wonder involved in this story are like a breath of fresh air for me.
Alan Dean Foster (pictured right) has for me, mostly been the guy who wrote the novelization of many of my favourite films (Alien, Star Trek, Tranformers) so I was a little nervous when I first came across this story, but honestly, I can't think of a better way to take a look at ourselves as a species than through the eyes of a very remarkable alien.
