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https://www.themarysue.com/the-10-best-sci-fi-books-about-alien-invasions/
For centuries, humans have looked up at the stars wondering if there are creatures “like us” out there. Science fiction authors have offered cautionary advice: “careful what you wish for.” What if extraterrestrials are a little too like us? I.e. homicidal resource guzzling maniacs with an innate drive to expand and control? If aliens are indeed enlightened, they’re probably smart enough to leave murder-primates like us alone. If they’re not, then human civilization might soon get a taste of its own killer medicine. Here are the 10 best sci-fi books about alien invasions, written so wishful thinkers like you can start preparing for interstellar combat instead.
The Three Body Problem
A modern sci-fi war epic, Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem is one of the most celebrated alien invasion books of the modern era. Book one of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, Liu’s novel takes its title from a problem that has plagued physicists for centuries. When three or more celestial bodies are in orbit around each other, their movements are nearly impossible to predict. When you’re an alien species living on a planet that orbits three suns, solving the three body problem isn’t just a theoretical conundrum – it’s the key to your survival. The solution? Abandon your planet and look for a more hospitable place. That blue one a few lightyears away looks pretty nice – if you were to get rid of the organisms already living on it. Trouble is, those inconvenient organisms are us, and we now alien invasion on its hands! Hard problems call for hard solutions, and this hard sci-fi novel packs a hard hitting punch.
For centuries, humans have looked up at the stars wondering if there are creatures “like us” out there. Science fiction authors have offered cautionary advice: “careful what you wish for.” What if extraterrestrials are a little too like us? I.e. homicidal resource guzzling maniacs with an innate drive to expand and control? If aliens are indeed enlightened, they’re probably smart enough to leave murder-primates like us alone. If they’re not, then human civilization might soon get a taste of its own killer medicine. Here are the 10 best sci-fi books about alien invasions, written so wishful thinkers like you can start preparing for interstellar combat instead.
The Three Body Problem
A modern sci-fi war epic, Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem is one of the most celebrated alien invasion books of the modern era. Book one of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, Liu’s novel takes its title from a problem that has plagued physicists for centuries. When three or more celestial bodies are in orbit around each other, their movements are nearly impossible to predict. When you’re an alien species living on a planet that orbits three suns, solving the three body problem isn’t just a theoretical conundrum – it’s the key to your survival. The solution? Abandon your planet and look for a more hospitable place. That blue one a few lightyears away looks pretty nice – if you were to get rid of the organisms already living on it. Trouble is, those inconvenient organisms are us, and we now alien invasion on its hands! Hard problems call for hard solutions, and this hard sci-fi novel packs a hard hitting punch.
The Adventures of Lion Man
In 1947, Orrin C. Evans created one of the world’s first Black superheroes–Lion Man! Appearing in the only issue of All Negro Comics, superhero history was forever changed. And now Lion Man is back! And Black Nerd Problems is happy to give an exclusive preview for the return of Lion Man.
Readapted and remixed for modern times, the award-winning visionary team of John Jennings and David Brame (After the Rain) create a mind-blowing Afrofuturistic tale of cosmic splendor while Bill Campbell (The Day the Klan Came to Town) and up-and-coming Zimbabwean writer, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Drinking from Graveyard Wells) deliver a Bondian African spy thriller full of plot twists, conspiracy thrillers, and political intrigue.
About the Team
John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture. As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism, and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series, and her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George RR Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers. Her work has been anthologized in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021 and the NAACP award-nominated Africa Risen (Tor). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal, F&SF, Tor.com, Lightspeed, FANTASY Magazine, and Fiyah Literary Magazine for Black Speculative Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel.
Bill Campbell is the author of Sunshine Patriots, My Booty Novel, and the anti-racism satire, Koontown Killing Kaper. Along with Edward Austin Hall, he co-edited the groundbreaking anthology, Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. He also co-edited Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany with Nisi Shawl, Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction and Fantasy with Francesco Verso, and APB: Artists against Police Brutality with Jason Rodriguez and John Jennings. His Afrofuturist spaceploitation graphic novel, Baaaad Muthaz (with David Brame and Damian Duffy) was released in 2019. His historical graphic novel with Bizhan Khodabandeh, The Day the Klan Came to Town, was released by PM Press in 2021. Campbell lives in Washington, DC, where he spends his time with his family and helms Rosarium Publishing.
Damian Duffy is a cartoonist, scholar, writer, curator, lecturer, teacher, and a Glyph Comics, Eisner Comics, Bram Stoker, and Hugo Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. He holds a MS and PhD in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses on computers & culture, and social media & global change. His many publications range from academic essays (in comics form) on new media & learning, to art books about underrepresentation in comics culture, to editorial comics, to a graphic novel adaptation of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, with his J2D2 Arts counterpart John Jennings. Kindred: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) was awarded the 2017 Brame Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel, and the 2018 Eisner Comics Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium. Their follow-up, Parable of the Sower: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) won the 2021 Ignyte Award for Best Comics Team, and the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. The co-editor of the Black Comix Returns art book from the Magnetic Collection at Lion Forge Comics, Damian has given talks and lead workshops about comics, art, and education internationally.
David Brame is proudly blackity black, an afrofuturist and scholar. His most recent scholarly creative accomplishments for 2019 and 2020 include Sanford Biggers: CODESWITCH in collaboration with Professor John Jennings, The Bronx Museum and produced by Yale University Press. His scholarly work geared towards black youth called, is called The Struggle, produced by Minnesota Press. His graphic novel After the Rain, disseminated by ABRAMS/Megascope, a short story written by Nnedi Okorafor and adapted by Professor John Jennings, was nominated for an Eisner. His comic work explores issues of race and identity in the context of the American South, Black Gothica, mysticism, and the African diaspora.
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The post EXCLUSIVE: The Legend of the Lion Man Lives Again appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Wednesday fans have been wondering since Netflix announced a second season if a particularly nefarious character would make a comeback. Although it didn’t happen until season two episode three, “Call of the Woe,” we can confirm that actress Christina Ricci does indeed reappear in the show. But this time, she’s a patient in the Willow Hill psychiatric hospital. She only cameos in episode three, but appears in a larger capacity in episode four. Sadly, however, this is where her character meets her untimely end. RIP, Mrs. Thornhill, we hardly knew you. In season one, Ricci played a prominent role as Mrs. Marilyn Thornhill, the only “Normie” teacher at the Nevermore Academy, the school for Outcasts that Wednesday Addams attends. Ricci’s casting, of course, raised a lot of questions about who she really was initially, as she famously played the child version of Wednesday in the ‘90s Addams Family films. At first, Mrs. Thornhill seemed like a benevolent botany teacher. She even served as a mentor to Wednesday as she adjusted to life at Nevermore. Mrs. Thornhill’s real identity actually tied her character into the main mystery of the series, which had Wednesday investigating a murder involving her parents. When the elder Addams were students at Nevermore Academy, Gomez had been accused of killing local rich kid Garret Gates. The notoriously anti-outcast Gates family all died later under mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Thornhill, the botany teacher, played the part of the caring den mother well. But she had more evil plans in store. Mrs. Thornhill. It turned out, wasn’t really a Thornhill at all. She was really Laurel Gates. She faked her own death in a drowning accident as a child. As the last surviving member of the powerful and outcast-hating local Gates family, Laurel changed her name and infiltrated Nevermore, waiting for the right time to exact her revenge on outcasts. She used her knowledge of plants to create a chemical that would unlock the “Hyde” (hidden monster) persona of local teenage Tyler Galpin, which she planned to use as a weapon of revenge against the Nevermore Academy, and specifically, Wednesday. And she came very close to succeeding, too. We learn in season two that Laurel actually survived the season one finale. The police sent her to Northern State Correctional Prison. She appears again with much shorter hair, acting loonier than ever. Although she did make visits to Willow Hill, helping the staff to deprogram Tyler. She still has an emotional hold over Tyler Galpin, and his doctor is trying to learn how she could control his Hyde persona. Even though she tries to reach Tyler, he still hates her, and tries to choke her to death. Later, when a zombie escapes his cell, she uses the ensuing chaos to see Tyler again. She frees him, but as a “thank you” to his “mother,” Tyler Hydes-out, impaling her with his claws. She dies telling Tyler, “Mommy loves you.” And that is the end of Laurel/Marilyn. But in the world of Wednesday, death is often not permanent. You never know. Part one of Wednesday season two is currently streaming on Netflix.
The post How an Important WEDNESDAY Season 1 Character Returns in Season 2 appeared first on Nerdist.