Puss Reboots: Blog: August 2008: An Open Letter to Earth

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Reviews:
Amore by Laura Wolf
Andromeda on the Street of Ducklings by Judi Hendricks
Another Dawn by Sandra Brown
Another Perfect Day by Steven Popkes
Bad Manners by Chris Manby
The Bamboo Confessions by Lauren Weisberger
Bounty by Rand B. Lee
Busy Horsies by John Schindel and Casi Lark
"But Wait! There's More!" by Richard Mueller
Childrun by Marc Laidlaw
Church of the Dog by Kaya McLaren
Click edited by Arthur Levine
Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James
A Day in the Life of my Great Brit Book Tour by Adriana Trigiani
Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs
The Dinosaur Train by James L. Cambrias
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
El Tigre by John H. Manhold
Five by Julianna Baggott
Flip and Flop by Dawn Apperley
The Fourth Watcher by Timothy Hallnan
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
A Grave Mistake by Stella Cameron
The Great Waldo Search by Martin Handfold
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
I Know a Woman by Quinn Dalton
Leaving a Light On by Claire LaZebnik
Lifetime Loser by James Ross
Moving Day by Cindy Chupack
An Open Letter to Earth by Scott Dalrymple
Persistence of Memory by J. M. Snyder
Poison Victory by Albert E. Cowdrey
The Political Prisoner by Charles Coleman Finlay
Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Regent's Knight by J. M. Snyder
Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace
Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger
Smoky the Baby Goat by Mary Elting Folsom and Veronica Reed
There's a Cow in the Cabbage Patch by Clare Beaton and Stella Blackstone
The Truth About Nigel by Jennifer Weiner
The Two-Month Itch by Sarah Mlynowski
Voodoo Dolls, C-Cups and Eminem by Melissa Senate
Yoga Babe by Lauren Henderson

Previous month

An Open Letter to Earth: 08/20/08

I love a completely silly and very short story when I need to unwind at the end of the day. "An Open Letter to Earth" by Scott Dalrymple in the August issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction fits that bill perfectly.

Like Ruth Nestvold's "Mars a Traveler's Guide" or Robert Reed's "Character Flu", "An Open Letter to Earth" is only a few pages long and more a monologue than a story. In this case, it is a letter from an unnamed extra terrestrial who rants about humanity and tries to explain why he and other visitors to Earth find the human species so interesting. He then goes on list ways that we can improve ourselves and our time on Earth.

It's cute story with some very silly points (like the request that the term "alien" be replaced with "Chuck Norris"® and that hamsters would be the perfect intergalactic currency. It also has some important warnings about protecting the environment, ending wars and celebrating diversity (even if the Chuck Norris can't tell humans apart).