Line #66 Literature/AlienInASmallTown


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aliencovertropes1.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Indira Fenstermacher & Paul Dwightson]]
3	A science fiction novel by Jim Cleaveland, creator of the webcomic ''[[Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!]]''
4
5	Some centuries in the future, Earth has entered into an alliance with a race of [[SiliconBasedLife silicon-based]] [[StarfishAliens nonhumanoid aliens]] called the Jan, and permitted them to establish a colony on [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Jupiter's moon Callisto]] in exchange for helping humanity establish itself in the wider interstellar community.
6
7	And although they are [[SpaceAmish perfectly aware of all this]], it has had little effect on the everyday lives of the technology-shunning [[UsefulNotes/{{Amish}} Mennonites]] of central UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}, who continue to live much as they have since the seventeenth century.
8
9	Thirty-years-old Indira Fenstermacher left her Mennonite community ten years ago, learned the ways of the outside world, got a job on a space station... but has now returned in the wake of a personal tragedy.
10
11	"Paul Dwightson," (his real name [[TheUnpronounceable unpronounceable)]] is a Jan who has made the bizarre choice to live on Earth among humans (bizarre because, although the two races are on friendly terms, [[BizarreAlienBiology Jan physiology can barely tolerate Earth's environmental conditions]]) and learn as much about us as possible. When pressed, he claims his actions are part of a religious vow, the nature of which he is reluctant to discuss. After a chance encounter with Indira, he chooses to live, of all places, among the Mennonites. The friendship he forms with Indira, and the difficulties that come with it, form the backbone of the story.
12	----
13	!!This book contains examples of:
14	* AlienArtsAreAppreciated: It turns out that the one thing that almost all alien races (at least the ones with a sense of hearing) agree that humans are genuinely good at is music.
15	* AndroidsArePeopleToo: Sentient robots gained legal rights after the passage of the [[Literature/TheVelveteenRabbit Velveteen Act.]] However, there is still lingering prejudice against them, and ''some'' governments still allow their enslavement.
16	%%* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Basically how [[spoiler: Paul declares his love for Indira]].
17	* TheAtoner: Indira to an extent, but for Paul, the need to atone is the driving force of his life.
18	* BeastAndBeauty: Partly inverted, in that Indira is by far the more emotionally volatile of the two. Paul insists he had a bad temper in his youth, though.
19	%%* BeePeople: Paul describes Jan culture this way.
20	* BeneathTheEarth: Or rather, beneath [[UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} Mars]] or [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Callisto.]] The Jan are naturally subterranean, and navigate by [[BizarreAlienSenses sonar.]]
21	* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Arachne. As cyborgs, the Arachne can design any kind of body for themselves that they want, but they tend to favor multilegged ones for moving around easily in zero G.
22	* BizarreAlienBiology: The Jan's biochemistry incorporates both carbon and silicon. They're radially symmetrical burrowers who prefer to live in conditions too cold for humans to survive; Earth's temperate regions are uncomfortable, and our tropical regions would destroy them at a biochemical level. Water is poisonous to them if taken internally. They're very strong but very slow. They store oxygen in their bodies as a liquid, meaning that their insides are flammable. They have three sexes: the male Workers, who make up the majority of the population; the female Matriarchs, who grow into essentially sessile living mountains and are the leaders of their society, and whose bodies typically contain tunneled passages which are inhabited by other Jan; and the sterile Warriors, who have six arms ending in vicious hooks, huge fanged mouths, and are much much faster and stronger than their Worker counterparts.
23	* BizarreAlienPsychology: Mainly having to do with the Jan's compulsive honesty, but also with their peculiar senses and means of communication by "sonar images."
24	* BizarreAlienSenses:
25	** Apart from 360 degree vision and the ability to see colors we can't, the Jan also have a sonar sense, which forms the basis of their language. Apart from giving them a form of XRayVision (they consider humans to be nice sturdy skeletons wrapped in slimy goo), this also means with practice a Jan can become a LivingLieDetector, because he can hear your heartbeat.
26	** The Tesks, meanwhile, are effectively empaths because of their heightened sense of smell and awareness of body language.
27	* TheBlank: Indira has felt self-conscious and "stared at" all her life. She finds it enormously comforting that her alien friend is a good listener and literally does not have a face.
28	* TheBridge: Most of Paul's FlashBack sequence is set on the bridge of a transport vessel he was reluctantly commanding.
29	* CallToAgriculture: Indira's return home, at the beginning of the novel, after traumatic events in space.
30	* CantHaveSexEver: [[spoiler: Well, at the very end, thanks to a RemoteBody, they finally ''could.'' They just realize they don't want to, after all.]]
31	* CannotTellALie: The Jan's most obvious [[PlanetOfHats hat.]] Being descended from hive-dwelling prey animals, cooperation was essential to their ancestors. They're terrible at lying and find the idea abhorrent. On one hand, they know that nobody ''else'' has a problem lying to ''them'' (fortunately, their sonar hearing lets them monitor a human's heartbeat, so with practice they can become [[LivingLieDetector living lie detectors).]] On the other, their reputation for trustworthiness has earned them a network of powerful ''allies,'' which they consider their greatest strength. All that being said, though -- they're perfectly willing to keep ''secrets,'' as long as they don't have to lie outright to maintain them.
32	* CasualInterplanetaryTravel: A trip to Mars on a passenger ship takes weeks, and doesn't seem terribly expensive.
33	%%* CrisisOfFaith: Paul suffers from this after [[spoiler: Indira's death]].
34	* CrypticBackgroundReference: Many off-hand references to places and historical events that are never explained in detail, like the Genomic War, the Android Uprising, and "the legendary lost ship ''Ograe Nyha."''
35	%%* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler: Tendai, decades later.]]
36	* DeconReconSwitch: [[spoiler: For the InterspeciesRomance trope. Paul couldn't be less interested in [[{{Squick}} squicky]] human mating practices, nor Indira in the bizarre Jannite reproductive process, but they are none the less [[OneTrueLove soul mates.]]]]
37	* DistantFinale: Decades pass during in the final few chapters.
38	* FantasticRacism: With interactions between humans, aliens, robots, and genetically engineered beings taking center stage, old fashioned prejudices over mere human skin color appear to have died out.
39	* FasterThanLightTravel: Averted. Travel between stars takes many years, though the existence of relativistic-speed spacecraft mean humans can certainly do it, provided they understand they can't come home again (or rather, because of time dilation, they would return to a world where [[YearOutsideHourInside many more years had passed than they themselves had experienced).]] The Jan, meanwhile, are ideally suited for interstellar travel because their bodies can withstand the forces of acceleration and deceleration.
40	%%* FishOutOfWater: Both Paul and Indira, at different times.
41	%%* FreakOut: What happened to Indira on Felice Station.
42	%%* TheFuture
43	%%* GeniusLoci: The Jan matriarchs, who are essentially living mountains.
44	* GreatOffscreenWar: At least two -- the Genomic War (which gave rise to genetically engineered HumanSubspecies like the Tesks and the Elves) and the Android Uprising.
45	* HiveCasteSystem: The Jan have this, with Workers, Warriors, and Matriarchs.
46	* HumanSubspecies: The Tesks, genetically engineered as soldiers, generations ago. It is mentioned that there are others, though only "Elves" are mentioned by name.
47	* {{Kaiju}}: ''Hoons'', enormous animals that prey on the Jan but hold a totemic significance for them. "Our great sacred nightmare."
48	* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler: As Indira realizes at a critical moment, the fact that Jannite organisms store liquid oxygen in their bodies makes their insides ''very'' flammable.]]
49	%%* HumansAreUgly: To the stony Jan, we're "blob monsters."
50	%%--> "Even after all this time on Earth, the little bipedal bloodbladders still all tended to look alike to him. [[BizarreAlienSenses The ground hummed for a moment as he took a sonograph of her,]] giving him a flash image of a delicate calcium/phosphorus understructure, wrapped in a flexible form-fitting sack of goo. It was truly miraculous that such an... ''object'' could be a conscious being. "
51	* LifeInZeroG: The Arachne are an alien species who prefer low and zero-G environments. They're all cyborgs who change their bodies as need be, favoring insect- and spider-like shapes to move more easily in gravity-free environments.
52	* LivingToys: This is how the robot, [[AndroidsArePeopleToo Barney Estragon]] started out. He was basically a rich kid's Toys/TeddyRuxpin. And then he was abandoned in a world where [[WhatMeasureIsANonhuman he had less rights than vermin.]] By the time he got his legal rights, the experience had taken its toll on his mind.
53	%%* LoveTriangle: [[spoiler: Paul, Indira, and Tendai -- although Indira is slow to recognize it, and Tendai never does.]]
54	* LuddWasRight: The Mennonites, obviously, but also the Jan, who fear giving too much control of their lives over to machines. This gives them an obvious rivalry with the technology-loving Arachne.
55	* NoTranshumanismAllowed:
56	** It's coming back into fashion after everyone scorned it following "the Genomic War". Still, the war spawned at least two genetically engineered subraces of humanity: the tough but very perceptive [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Tesks]], and the briefly-mentioned long-lived race called [[SpaceElves Elves]]. Also, even if it wasn't done recently, almost everyone on Earth has a few genetically engineered ancestors.
57	** The Jan reject heavy body modification while the Arachne embrace it.
58	* TheOutsideWorld: The world beyond Dutch country, where technology and society have continued to progress. Indira refers to it jokingly as "the-World-with-a-capital-W," and has very mixed feelings about it.
59	* PastoralScienceFiction: A meditative s.f. story set in the countryside.
60	* PlantPerson: There's a passing mention of an alien race called the Plandarites who seem to fit the bill.
61	* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Nuada and the Warrior Jan. Also Thrym, although he has largely put it behind him.
62	%%* RedRightHand: Nuada's silver hand.
63	* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: A lot of it. [[Literature/TheBible Paul, Steven,]] [[Myth/CelticMythology Nuada,]] [[Myth/NorseMythology Heimdall,]] [[Myth/MesopotamianMythology Ishtar,]] [[Myth/NorseMythology Thrym]] [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Scyllaschild,]] [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Ares, Persephone,]] and [[Myth/NorseMythology Valhalla.]] Notable that Valhalla Crater on [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Callisto]] exists in RealLife.
64	* ReligiousRobot: Barney Estragon is a robot Old Order Mennonite. Yes.
65	%%* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[spoiler: Nuada.]]
66	* RoboSexual: Alexei and [[RobotGirl Kim.]] In Indira's estimation, the ethics of this depend entirely on whether Kim is actually sentient, and if she is, whether she has free will. It's implied that neither is the case.
67	* ShoutOut: Many and varied, from books like ''Literature/{{Candide}},'' ''Literature/MobyDick,'' ''Literature/PilgrimsProgress,'' ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds,'' and ''Literature/TheHobbit'' to contemporary musicians like Music/AlanisMorissette and Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}}.
68	* SiliconBasedLife: The Jan and all other organisms from their world. Strictly speaking their biologies include both silicon and carbon.
69	%%* SliceOfLife: A rare science fiction example.
70	%%* SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence: There is a definite distinction between sentient machines and nonsentient ones, but... %%Quotes are not context.
71	%%--> "It could be very hard to tell, even if she took the time to converse with it (the old TuringTest was a joke; the parser program ELIZA had done a fair job of making a mockery of it only sixteen years after the test was proposed, and modern “hollow” behavior simulators could ape human speech quite well while lacking even the self-awareness of a honeybee)."
72	* SmallTownBoredom: Indira's complaint about the town where she was raised.
73	%%* SonicStunner: How hoons disable their prey.
74	%%* SpaceAmish: Mennonites... [[RecycledInSpace IN THE FUTURE!]] To a much lesser extent, the Jan count, too.%%How?
75	%%* SpaceStation: Felice Station, the most vital port city in the solar system.
76	%%* StarfishAliens: All aliens appear to be this.
77	* StepfordSmiler: In the end [[spoiler: Thrym becomes an Arachne and gets his brain reworked to be always happy.]]
78	* SuperSoldier: The Tesks were created to be this. Civilian life has not been easy for them.
79	* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Paul is surprised to learn that there is less prejudice against aliens than against robots, and then realizes that that's to be expected in a technology-shunning society. The Mennonites finally came to accept [[RobotBuddy Barney]] because, after all, he didn't build himself.
80	* {{Tsundere}}: Indira can be very understanding but has a terrible temper.
81	* WhamEpisode: [[spoiler: Jawaharlal's death.]]
82	* WhamLine: [[spoiler: ''"I love you!'' I’ve ''always'' loved you! I can’t die without telling you. Christ, I love you so much! I’m so jealous of Tendai, it’s killing me!”]]
83	* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: Many descriptions of the beauty of rural [[UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}} Pennsylvania,]] as well as that of alien environments on [[UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} Mars,]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Jupiter}} Jupiter, and]] [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Callisto.]]
84	* {{Xenofiction}}: Half told from the point of view of a [[StarfishAliens Starfish Alien.]]

Context Literature / AlienInASmallTown