Alien invasion stories often begin with a dramatic spectacle: light splits the sky, a fleet of horrifying ships appears above the city, emergency response teams speed through the streets, governments panic, crowds run, buildings fall, and so on.
There is power in that kind of story. It gives us the shock of arrival, the thrill of resistance, the terror of facing something vast and visibly other. But I find it boring and predictable. I prefer the kind of alien arrival story in which everything remains quiet, eerie and psychologically tense. The kind where people continue making cups of tea, walking their dogs, going to work and so on.
In these stories, everything is fine until tiny details change: a word forgotten, a memory softened at the edges, a neighbour behaving differently, a familiar street suddenlt becomes less familiar and no one knows why. The world looks the same, but the meaning underneath it has shifted and everyone knows it. But ‘knowing it’ may only last a moment before the change feels like ‘the new normal’.
My short story, The Watchers: A Story of First Contact, grew from my interest in the more cerebral and psychologically tense kind of alien invasion. In this story, the invaders appear slowly, and at the edge of perception. They send the terrestrial population into a standing sleep and slowly download their collective memory to add to their own vault of universal knowledge. When they are done, they disappear.
The Watchers: Story & Art Bundle is now available, and includes:
- The complete story in ePub format, readable on any device
- The original artworks that inspired the story, in high-resolution JPG format
- Behind-the-scenes content and questions