Description

PRoblem is a sharp, comic science fiction story by Alan E. Nourse about aliens, public relations, mass panic, and the difficulty of selling the public on the terrifyingly unfamiliar. When the Grdznth arrive from a parallel universe, they are peaceful, apologetic, and useful to Earth's authorities-but they look like nightmares, appear unpredictably in public places, and frighten ordinary citizens beyond endurance. Pete Greenwood, a seasoned public-relations man, is called in to turn a social disaster into an acceptable story before politics, fear, and public hysteria make the situation impossible.

Nourse turns an alien-contact premise into a brisk satire of image-making, media management, xenophobia, bureaucracy, and human sentiment. The Grdznth are not invaders in the usual pulp sense; they are refugees with a problem of their own, and Earth's reaction to them reveals as much about human beings as it does about alien life. For readers of Golden Age science fiction, vintage magazine SF, comic alien-contact stories, public-relations satire, and Alan E. Nourse's short fiction, PRoblem is a compact and clever example of mid-century speculative storytelling. Explore other exciting Positronic Books devoted to classic science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.