Mankind comes face to face with extraterrestrial life in this short fiction reprint anthology from Clarkesworld publisher Neil Clarke. They Are Strangers from Far Lands… Science fiction writers have been using aliens as a metaphor for the other for over one hundred years. Superman has otherworldly origins, and his struggles to blend in on our planet are a clear metaphor for immigration. Earth’s adopted son is just one example of this “Alien Among Us” narrative. There are stories of assimilation, or the failure to do so. Stories of resistance to the forces of naturalization. Stories told from the alien viewpoint. Stories that use aliens as a manifestation of the fears and worries...

Judith Berman has spent extended periods of time in Idaho, Vermont, British Columbia, and Alaska, and since 1979 she has lived in Philadelphia. The author received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, and attended Clarion in 1994. Currently she is employed as a guest curator at a Pennsylvania museum. “Lord Stink” is set in her “Mountain Land” universe, which is based on the mythology and traditional culture of the Native Americans of the north Pacific coast. The story (which is her first tale for Asimov’s) was “inspired by the widespread Bear Husband myth, but it does not follow the myth very carefully.”