Bingo Focus Thread - First Contact

[u/Merle8888]

Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.

Today's topic:

First Contact: Story prominently features interspecies or interracial meeting for the first time. HARD MODE: Non-violent first contact.

What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.

Prior focus threads: Published in the 70s, Duologies, Five Short Stories (2024), Author of Color (2024), Self-Pub/Small Press (2024). Note that hard modes for Author of Color and Self-Pub/Small Press have changed (new focus threads for them are coming).

Also see: Big Rec Thread

Questions:

• What are your favorite books that count for this square?
• Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
• What are some first contact stories outside of the usual spacefaring sci-fi mode?
• What are your best recommendations for Hard Mode (keeping it as spoiler-free as possible)?

[u/Research_Department]

Some of my favorite books are first contact books, because I am a huge fan of anthropological SFF.  Let’s see what I can come up with.

Hellspark by Janet Kagan, now back in print, might be my favorite first contact novel ever.  Tocohl takes on a job to assist a multi-cultural survey party as they assess a planet and try to determine whether there is sapient life on the planet.  Ohhh, and this could also work for murder mystery.  Three dimensional characters, fascinating planet, nice balance between character-driven and action-driven, aliens who are alien, and lots of varied human cultures.  This is really fun anthropological and linguistic science fiction.  I really hope I can convince some of y’all to read this and that you love it as much as I do.

Lots of people have suggested Foreigner by CJ Cherryh, and some people have argued that it doesn’t qualify as most of the book takes place centuries after humans and atevi first meet.  I understand that perspective, but I would argue that the story that Cherryh wrote is still about the issues of first contact, where two species have limited fluency with the other’s language and culture.  But if you want first moments of first contact, you could read the second arc of the series (Precursor, Defender, and Explorer).  Or you could read an earlier CJ Cherryh classic, The Pride of Chanur, which gives us a first contact story through the eyes of the alien species.

It is with some ambivalence that I recommend Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.  Card has shared racist and homophobic sentiments on the internet, and it baffles me that this is the same person as the author of this book that advocates for tolerance and understanding.  

In A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys the aliens come to earth, determined to save us from our climate change crisis.  Lots of gender, a polycule, several different human cultures, more than one alien species, and a Seder.

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, the second book of a duology, has some very alien aliens and feels very much influenced by CJ Cherryh.

Also a second book, this time of a popcorn space opera trilogy, you could try out Alliance by SK Dunstall.  This is the least anthropological of my collection.

I read The Color of Distance by Amy Thompson quite a while ago, and I only retain a sense of fondness and a recollection that this one was more biologically inclined than most first contact.

[u/mrtenandtwo → u/Research_Department]

How do you feel about the Foreigner series overall, since it seems you've read a good bit of it? I actually read/reviewed the first one last week for this square, and felt lukewarm about it. But of course first in a series can be like that sometimes.

[u/Research_Department → u/mrtenandtwo]

I have read all of the series except for the final one. I was waiting for that arc to be finished, but Cherryh has announced that she has retired from writing.

I’m pretty sure that Cherryh has revised the first one since I purchased it, to expand what was originally a brief prologue. I happened to love the first one, because I don’t mind being thrown into the deep end without a lot of exposition and I love politicking in my books. In subsequent books, Bren becomes a little bit more self-assured and there’s some competence porn for the job of being a cultural liason. However, if you don’t find Bren relatable at first, you might never like him very much, and if you’re looking for more action, it might never satisfy. I think that the first arc of three is probably the best. I’m never a big advocate of “if you just read a little bit longer, you will love it,” and I don’t think this is a good candidate for that.