I'm making a list of stories (books, movies, songs, short fiction, whatever) that deal primarily with human first contact with another sentient species. This is just a beginning. Please tell me what I've forgotten or didn't know about.
Fictional Books Contact by Carl Sagan The Mote in God's Eye and Footfall by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series as well as his 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001 series, and Childhood's End.
Movies ET Close Encounters of the Third Kind War of the Worlds The Day the Earth Stood Still The Alien movies. The Predator movies. Short Circuit - well, not really species per se, but another intelligence. Species
Songs Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by Terry Draper and John Woloschuk (popularized by The Carpenters)
OK, so I had a longer list but left it at home and this is all I can remember off the top of my head. Feel free to post additions. Also, I'm looking for recommendations on any non-fiction books dealing with the subject (well, dealing with the potential of some sort of first contact, anyway).
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Could you count Children of the Mind? That's the book where they discovered the Descolada was sentient, but it wasn't their first contact with them.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Independence Day! Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Signs
Posted by closeyourmind (Member # 5916) on :
The Abyss
Posted by ludosti (Member # 1772) on :
Batteries Not Included Lilo and Stitch
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Narnia, Certainly, actually, I could count Ender's Game (for the backstory on the buggers), Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide (for Jane, and the piggies), as well as Children of the Mind for the Descolada as you mentioned. I can't believe I didn't think of those.
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
And I thought this thread was going to be about your first experience with contact lenses....
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
What about Martian Chronicles?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
David Brin's Uplift Saga
and Styx's "Sail Away"
Posted by sarahdipity (Member # 3254) on :
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
See, I forgot about Jane. That's cool.
If you want to get technical, you could count the Shadow books if we see Bean as a separate species from human. Posted by Damien.m (Member # 8462) on :
Star Trek First Contact(duh)
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
The War of the Worlds.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
...War of the Worlds...
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
Jinx.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Well, I don't really count Bean as a separate species. He may be one, technically, but he looks and acts human and he is culturally human so there's no "first contact" aspect to the story, really.
I purposefully left out Star Trek: First Contact because contrary to the title, the story has very little to do with a first contact. It's more of a McGuffin. Star Trek, the series dealt with many first contacts, but not with the first time humans made contact with anyone else. By the time in which the series takes place, humans have had generations of contact with at least 3 other sentient species.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I think it's called I Put My Blue Genes On.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge.
The Eschaton Sequence by Frederick Pohl.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Seems like half of Larry Niven's books deal with first contact, but it's been a while since I've read any of them.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
The humans on Earth in First Contact experienced their first contact with the Vulcans.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
afr, I've only read 3 of his, and two dealt with first contact.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
James Gunn's The Listeners needs to go on the novel list.
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
Don't forget the awful "song":
Planet Texas
Kenny Roger's attempt to revive a flagging career by recording a country "song" with the word "Texas" in the title. No one falls for that trick anymore.
and maybe Purple People Eater (wasn't that a song?)
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Stephen Baxter's Calculating God is another novel that leaps to mind.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Signs. (That movie is so scary!)
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Mac, Yeah, but as I said above that wasn't really the point of the movie. It was just a McGuffin - a plot device solely to motivate the action in a film, the film is really about Picard and crew battling the Borg (who they also aren't first-contacting in that movie).
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
Well, a big part of Babylon 5 was the disastrous first contact between humans and the Mimbari, and first contact with the Vorlons, the Drak, The Shadows, and about a billion others.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Stranger in A Strange Land could be considered a First Contact novel, as could The Martian Chronicles .
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by MidnightBlue: And I thought this thread was going to be about your first experience with contact lenses....
And I thought it was going to be stories about your first RL contact with another Hatracker.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
Alan Dean Foster: "Quozl" "Lifeform" and the "Damned" series.
I'm sure that there's more. He's pretty prolific. First Contact seems to be something he thinks about a lot. He also wrote a book called "Maori", which may qualify as a first contact book, even though is involves no extraterrestrials.
Posted by SC Carver (Member # 8173) on :
Alien
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: Stephen Baxter's Calculating God is another novel that leaps to mind.
I think you mean Robert J. Sawyer's Calculating God. Of which I have a signed hardcover.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Tante, Maori is one of my favorite books. A wonderful non-Sci Fi read.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Gremlins?
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light
Out of print, I guess, but I thought they were fabulous.
"Enter Lynne Christie, envoy of Earth Dominion. Her mission: to establish first contact with Orthe's government and evaluate Orthe's readiness for further Dominion relations, a mission delayed mysteriously by her predecessor's untimely death upon the Inner Sea."
Well, maybe she is not the first first contact, but I still think it works.
Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :
Several books in the Gateway / Heechee series.
Sphere, Michael Crichton
Armor, John Steakly
I hate dragging Stargate into this, but Stargate (and SG-1)
As for songs, Humans from Earth is a hilarious take on humans meeting beings on other planets (with a very Independence Day style attitude) by T-Bone Burnett.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
"The Color of Distance" by Amy Thomas is another novel about first contact, though on a different planet. The not-as-good sequel is about the same first contact but them being brought to Earth (called "Through Alien Eyes").
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Not limited to first contact stuff, but a good list of Alien film and television is here. Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
Does this list include short stories?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Childhoods End, by Clarke.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Anne McCaffrey: Dragonsdawn and one of the Tower books, but I don't remember which offhand. It was somewhat incidental to the plot, in any case.
That very disturbing OSC short that was became one of the three plays in Performing as People. The one with the girl with neither arms nor legs?
Addit: I believe I mean Sepulchre of Songs.
[ August 10, 2005, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by MyrddinFyre: "The Color of Distance" by Amy Thomas is another novel about first contact, though on a different planet. The not-as-good sequel is about the same first contact but them being brought to Earth (called "Through Alien Eyes").
I LOVE THOSE BOOKS. And was going to mention them The Xenogenisis series of Octavia Butler.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
Yay! I thought I was the only one on Earth who's read them Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I didn't include Short Stories, but they can certainly be included. I'd like one caveat, though: Please include title, author, and publication. The problem I have with short stories is that I often remember the story vividly, but can't remember who wrote or or which magazine or anthology I read it from.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Stephen Baxter Manifold Space
Posted by Billy Joel (Member # 5357) on :
And here I thought Star Trek: First Contact would be among the first mentioned.
Posted by larisse (Member # 2221) on :
How about The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Nivel and Jerry Pournelle or Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke as candidates.
Also, have you noticed that there are at least two new fall season shows about first contact with aliens. I think one is called Threshold and Invasion is the other. Threshold has Brent Spiner in it as a bit of ST:First Contact connection there. There might be one more, but I can't recall.
Posted by larisse (Member # 2221) on :
Oh, I just remembered another story called "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin. I've never read the story, but I have seen the Outer Limits episode with Beau Bridges based on it. It is the title story in a collection of short stories he wrote in the 1970's.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
I can't believe I forgot Weird Al's Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars. *smacks forehead* Silly me.
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