SO QUICK BRIGHT THINGS COME TO CONFUSION

Left on an alien planet to supervise an automated mining operation, an earthling has a complicated cohabiting relationship with a local woman in Gussoff Sumption’s SF novella.

An Earth corporation is inspecting the distant planet of Zil for potential resource exploitation. The testy environment there, which features long dry seasons followed by tsunamilike rainstorms, is home to a remarkable, intelligent, silicon-based life-form. The Zills dwell in subsoil hibernation for long periods and are roughly humanoid but with large, flat tails and scales. Their society is at a preindustrial level, and the Zills appear to take the presence of humans in stride. As the story opens, human geologist James Blackthorne is supervising robotic mining/exploration operations. As per arrangement with the locals, a single Zill lives in the base camp with him. Aveliin is a smart and inquisitive Zill woman who eagerly absorbs James’ maladroit lessons on Earth culture, mostly by playing time-killing board and card games and watching videos of his favorite comedy films, Caddyshack and So I Married an Axe Murderer (and readers should be advised that watching the latter may be required to fully grok the plot dynamics here). James, meanwhile, tries to learn the ways of the Zill, but Aveliin’s answers in simplified English (“Zinglish,” as James calls it)aren’t sufficiently illuminating. James, it turns out, had a recent breakup with a human co-worker, and as he and Aveliin grow closer, things take an unexpected turn. Of course, readers of classic SF will know that. Philip José Farmer’s 1952 work The Lovers(which, like this material, is a short story later expanded to novel length) is the genre groundbreaker in terms of xenosexuality. Gussoff Sumption’s novella takes this closest-of-close-encounters idea a step beyond that tale. The narrative’s undefined vernacular (“Aveliin turns to the window. She touches the glass. ‘Wal chok mon,’ she says. ‘Chok mon chok wal.’ ”) will leave readers as oblivious as the ill-starred James. However, there are some nice, sidelong kicks at capitalist imperialism and the pitfalls of making assumptions, all wrapped up in a dark little Valentine’s Day package.

A short, sardonic alien-human love story.