Product Description

The Last Thing They Expected Was First ContactIt's long ago been settled that humanity is all alone in the universe. All the centuries of searches for extra-terrestrial intelligence have turned up exactly nothing at all. And when humanity's first and only colony in another star system was invaded some years back, it was by unwanted human interlopers from Earth -- interlopers calling themselves The Fruitful, who are sure that God himself is guiding them. The new arrivals cause the colony trouble enough that many of the original settlers have packed up and moved elsewhere on the planet -- only to discover some very alarming signs that the first settlers aren't quite so alone as they thought. Phil Bertrand and Hazel Castagna had striven for years to reach and settle their new world, but they found themselves on different sides when the Fruitful arrived and forced hard choices on everyone. Now, without quite intending it, they have become allies again, as well as the half-unwilling co-leaders of a group that must find a way to protect humans from aliens -- and, perhaps, aliens from humans. But exactly who -- and what -- are the aliens? First serialized in Analog Magazine, this thrilling story overturns all the conventional ideas of First Contact. Night Ride and Sunrise forces a choice between the triumph of a philosophy and the survival of a species. There are, after all, times when an idea has the power to get everyone killed….

About the Author

Stanley Schmidt was born in Cincinnati and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1966. He began selling stories while a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, where he completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1969. He continued freelancing while an assistant professor at Heidelberg College in Ohio, teaching physics, astronomy, science fiction, and other oddities. (He was introduced to his wife, Joyce, by a serpent while teaching field biology in a place vaguely resembling that well-known garden.) He has contributed numerous stories and articles to original anthologies and magazines including Analog, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Rigel, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, American Journal of Physics, Camping Journal, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. He has edited or coedited about a dozen anthologies. Since 1978, as editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, he was nominated 34 times for the Hugo award for Best Professional Editor, and won in 2013 for Best Editor, Short Form. He is or has been a member of the Board of Advisers for the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, and has been an invited speaker at national meetings of those organizations, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers, as well as numerous museums and universities. In his writing and editing he draws on a varied background including extensive experience as a musician, photographer, traveler, naturalist, outdoorsman, pilot, and linguist. Most of these influences have left traces in his six novels and short fiction. His nonfiction includes the book Aliens and Alien Societies: A Writer's Guide to Creating Extraterrestrial Life-Forms, and The Coming Convergence: The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future, and hundreds of Analog editorials, some of them collected in Which Way to the Future? He was Guest of Honor at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, and has been a Nebula and Hugo award nominee for his fiction. In September 2012, he retired from editing Analog (after a longer run than any previous editor, including John W. Campbell), and now is doing more of his own writing, as well as many of the other things mentioned above.