I’m commencing my end-of-the-year Taos Toolbox review by bringing to your attention new works by Taos Toolbox veterans. Our writers have been published, won Hugo awards, and are maintaining careers in a changing and challenging field. And let’s not forget that books make excellent last-minute holiday presents!
Today’s example: Alien Crossings by Laura F. Sanchez, a novel about an alien who, well, crosses over.
Seventeen-year-old Goran Helin can pass for human if he keeps to himself, keeps his clothes on, and keeps his mouth shut. After all, less than 4 percent of his genome comes from a planet 23 light years away. If he follows the first rule of his hybrid alien-earthling people–never get close enough to humans to reveal your true nature–he’ll die of old age at 32 like the rest of his Yunko kind. But Goran breaks the rule, then flees across climate-hammered, xenophobic, near-future Washington State and British Columbia with his forbidden human co-conspirators in a wild effort to restore his people’s normal lifespans. He hopes his people will reward him as their savior instead of executing him as their betrayer.
