The story is told from the viewpoint of a pair of security agents, like Fox and Mulder, who are assigned to investigate the mysterious chain of deaths of prominent scientists. Merely being able to see the aliens is no help, since we, the humans, still cannot touch them. Unable to hide any longer, the aliens, like any rancher faced with rebellious cattle, decides to wipe the human race out in a great feast of terror and agony. But the secret spreads, and finally the truth is revealed. Anyone who even thinks about the possibility of their existence is doomed as soon as one of the aliens comes close enough to sense his or her thoughts.īut as science progresses, an accidental discovery reveals their secret, even though the discoverers die like flies, one after the other. The enemy is not invisible, but simply exist in a frequency range that unaided human eyes cannot see. They share the world with us and feed off of our nervous energy, the more intense the better, especially fear and anger. Humans are cattle to an alien race, and have always been. The answer is even more terrifying than Morpheus's answer to Neo in The Matrix. The author starts with the questions, 'If everyone wants peace, then why don't we get it?' and 'If there are aliens, why haven't they appeared yet?' Post navigation ← THE DARWIN ELEVATOR, THE EXODUS TOWERS, and THE PLAGUE FORGE by Jason M.Before there was the 'Matrix' or 'Aliens' or even 'X-Files' and 'Fringe', there was Sinister Barrier the 1939 debut novel by Britis SF author Eric Frank Russell, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. This entry was posted in Uncategorized on Octoby george. I also highly recommend the Eric Frank Russell volumes published by NESFA. There’s not a lot of humor in Science Fiction, but Eric Frank Russell’s sly story-telling has plenty of it. The aliens know nothing about Terrans so the scout baffles them with wacky information. But the scout ship’s propulsion tubes wear out and the scout is forced to land on an enemy planet. His mission is to map enemy territory and send the information back to Terran Space Command.

In Next of Kin, a Terran space scout enters enemy space flying a super-fast ship. Erie Frank Russell specialized in stories where the hero would outwit his powerful opponents with double-talk and confusion.

But Next of Kin (aka The Space Willies) provided plenty of amusement, too. When I was a teenager, I loved Eric Frank Russell’s clever tales.

Sinister Barrier by Eric Frank Russell