Extraterrestrial Contact: Liars

Trust would be an important issue in any First Contact event. It would be especially important in a Direct First Contact event, where we meet the aliens here on Earth or somewhere in our solar system. Why the different in importance? It all comes down to threat. First Contact of any sort brings with it a certain level of threat. Just knowing there are other intelligent beings in the universe would raise the question of threat. The closer those beings are to Earth, the greater the level of threat.

And, as I have said before, the threat doesn’t truly diminish if the aliens seem to be nice and helpful. They could be lying. They may also have a logic system that we don’t understand leaving it hard for us to understand or predict their actions. They might want to keep some things from us, for our safety or for their safety.

So, how do we know if aliens that we might meet in the future are telling the truth? The short answer is that we don’t. That raises many implications, both for our response and preparation. I have a new novel that takes that concern up a level. What do we do if there are two alien civilizations approaching us at one time? Perhaps one group offers certain benefits to starting a relationship? Maybe the other provides alternative reasons for diplomacy?

That’s what Alex Morrison needs to weigh in my new fiction novel “The Ashland City Landing”. Alex Morrison has made a new friend on the Internet. It’s a relationship that could drive his wife and friends half-crazy and that’s if federal agents and newspaper reporters don’t blow it wide open before the big moment. Can Alex hold it all together before The Ashland City Landing?

The Ashland City Landing is a sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious, science fiction novel about the practicalities of meeting space aliens and having to save the world from itself and also perhaps those very same aliens. Alex fights to keep his sanity, while concocting an introduction that will change the course of human civilization. He’s being pursued by a journalist desperate for a cover story. Alex’s best friend is a real ass and sometimes his psychologist. Alex’s wife does her best to be the Southern belle, but that’s not going too well. And yet he needs them both to pull it off. Along the way Alex enlists help from a burned-out astrophysicist and meets federal agents who are definitely not amused.

The Ashland City Landing is available in printed and Kindle electronic format through Amazon USA,

Amazon Europe affiliates and through Nook at Barnes and Noble.