LITTLE BIT

On a near-future Earth—still absorbing the breakthrough of human first contact with advanced aliens—some members of a more primitive extraterrestrial species are given a haven to recover and rally against the vicious invaders of their home world.

In this sequel, Burns continues an SF series set in the universe he created in Redemption Song(2017). The birdlike humanoids called Rynn are a spacefaring alien species who made accidental first contact with Earth following the forced disembarking of a female Rynn of noble birth called Small Snow Flower. She was given the Japanese name Kasumi following her adoption by a human idealist and his wife. The advanced Rynn technology, medicine, and social outlook have proven a boon for Homo sapiens. But now there is a race for whom the Rynn feel particularly protective. With characteristics like a chimerical mix of marsupial, snake, and burrowing owl, the cat-sized Alsoo are nontechnological innocents whose home world was conquered by rapacious insectoids who mindlessly devoured them. A 20-year-old settlement of rescued Alsoo now abides on Earth. Under careful Rynn/human supervision, it progresses courtesy of a native Alsoo genius called Truth Hunter, who implements written language, food storage, crossbows, and other Bronze Age innovations. Little Bit, a headstrong young female Alsoo, becomes a favorite of Kasumi and her human intimates (a clanlike social structure called a “core”). When the Earth dwellers finally pinpoint the besieged Alsoo planet, Little Bit accompanies the core and a squad of trained Alsoo soldiers to liberate any surviving brethren they may find. Longtime SF readers may get the vivid echoes of Jack Vance in what follows (plus a salute to James Blish, another golden age author), particularly in Burns’ total-immersion gimmick of having the Alsoo speak at length in pidgin English with an object-subject-verb sentence structure. Their speech (“Two hand-one blood ring count me. Unity think have me same-same”) is rather in the manner of Star Wars’ fan favorite Master Yoda, only more so. Readers will sink or swim depending on their acclimation to the dialogue syntax. It is a plus, then, that the plot is a straightforward affair, saving the twists for the end, which opens the path to further engaging chronicles of interplanetary worldbuilding.

Comprehend or no comprehend; there is no try. A thoughtful dive into an alien culture.