Author: Frank Herbert

Length: short story

First Publication: Astounding Science Fiction (Analogue), 1959

What the Story is About: Primate-like aliens captures an exploratory ship and the Rediscovery & Re-education agent sent to solve the problem uses the aliens’ biology to help solve the problem.

The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically … but he can, if he’s sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!

• Find alternate text formats at FeedBooks.
• Listen to the Audio version from Libravox.

Author: Tobias S. Buckell

Length: short story

First Publication: Clarkesworld Magazine, 2010

What the Story is About: What do you do when you find a brand new planet with a patentable ecosystem and possibly intelligent life?

Listen to the Audio version at Clarkesworld Magazine.

Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Interzone, 2003

What the Story is About: Buddy Joe pays for his crime by being fitted for an alien suit. From the introduction to the story in Year’s Best SF 9:

It is about the nature of the universe and the human desire to understand it and manipulate it, and the utter disaster that results. It it also about the old SF idea of scientists making monsters.

Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Interzone, 2001

What the Story is About: Aliens arrive on Earth bringing a host of new diseases.

Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Infinity Plus, 2001

What the Story is About: “Beta” Aliens who live among humans each have an experimental project that affects the local population.

Author: Raymond Z. Gallun

Length: short story

First Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, 1953

What the Story is About: Humans rescue the lone survivor of a crashed alien ship. Could this be the beginning of friendly human-alien relations? The teaser:

It’s a funny thing, but most monsters seem to be of the opinion that it’s men who are the monsters. You know, they have a point.

Author: Alan Edward Nourse

Length: short story

First Publication: If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1958

What the Story is About: A medical survey ship brings back an unexpected passenger on their trip home to Hospital Earth. Will they be able to find a way to kill it before it eats everything aboard?

Author: Clifford D. Simak

Length: short story

First Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, 1958

What the Story is About: A human farmer on an alien planet tries to hunt down the creature that has been damaging his crops. It turns out to be much stranger – and harder to kill – than he anticipated.

Author: Robert Sheckley

Length: Short story

First Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, 1953

What the Story is About: Two starving astronauts find what may be a cache of food on an alien planet. Should they eat it?

The story’s teaser:

They could eat a horse, only luckily there was none … it might have eaten them first!

Author: Evelyn E. Smith

Length: short story

First Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction , 1957

What the Story is About: A slightly silly story about an alien pet that initially appears to be a “large, woolly pink caterpillar”.

Author: Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

Length: short story

First Publication: 1752 (linked version was published in 1829 with annotations by M. Beuchot.

What the Story is About: A giant being from a planet of the star Sirius and his slightly smaller companion from Saturn come to Earth. According to WIkipedia, it is “a significant development in the history of literature because it originates ideas which helped create the genre of science fiction.”

[The Saturnian] took out a small microscope of 160 feet in diameter and put it up to his eye; and Micromegas took up one of 2,005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one of them could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finally the Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with his little finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it to the Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrously small scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuaded that our world was inhabited, figured very quickly that it was inhabited only by whales; and as he was very good at reasoning, he was determined to infer the origin and evolution of such a small atom; whether it had ideas, a will, liberty. Micromegas was confused. He examined the animal very patiently and found no reason to believe that a soul was lodged in it. The two voyagers were therefore inclined to believe that there is no spirit in our home, when with the help of the microscope they perceived something as large as a whale floating on the Baltic Sea.

As you might expect, Voltaire satirizes his contemporaries and includes a healthy dose of philosophy – the annotations definitely help.

•  Alternate text version at Free Sci-Fi Classics (with introduction, and edited to correct “mathematical blunders”)

• Read in French

• Audio version (in French)

Author: Noel Miller Loomis

Length: short story

First Publication: Planet Stories, 1952

What the Story is About: A treasure hunter learns to use the wild resources in the swamps of Venus to keep himself alive. It’s a not scientifically accurate in any way, but it’s not a bad adventure tale.