Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/
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On 7/9/2021 9:04 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
> https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/

Zero for five for me as usual.

My additions to this list are:
1. "Footfall" by Niven and Pournelle
https://www.amazon.com/Footfall-Larry-Niven/dp/0345323440/
2. "Live Free or Die" by John Ringo
https://www.amazon.com/Live-Free-Die-Troy-Rising/dp/1439133972/

Lynn

On Friday, July 9, 2021 at 8:04:53 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
> https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/

Given your description of Exo, I'm surprised that humans seeking
independence wouldn't do the sensible thing: support a more
aggressive policy against the Rii, so that after they're completely
wiped out, the Mur might not need to be so interested in Earth.

Two of the other examples appear to be stories aimed at deploring
humanity's destructive habits and lack of stewardship of this planet.
Subversively un-Campbellian!

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, July 9, 2021 at 8:04:53 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> > Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
> > https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/
>
> Two of the other examples appear to be stories aimed at deploring
> humanity's destructive habits and lack of stewardship of this planet.
> Subversively un-Campbellian!

Let's see:
a standard alien conquest
aliens picking up the pieces of a post-apocalyptic story
two stories of us designing our successors, one, robots as a better us,
the description of _Bloom_ makes it sound like we're supplanted by something that is merely better in the Darwinian contest of surviving, although the story possibility is left open that it is an intelligence.
and, it seems, an anti-robinsonade ("robinsonade" derives from _Robinson Crusoe_ and _The Swiss Family Robinson_) as an anti-robinsonade can also come down to a single castaway, not every such story qualifies as Humans Are No Longer In Charge, some could be just that we didn't send enough locusts to constitute a swarm. Then there's an Eric Frank Russell story about an alien planet that was judged "unconquerable," but the expedition that found that to be true did not have to stay on amid the failure.

Let me try to think of other types of stories...
Not more alien conquests, maybe just being categorized and catalogued by a galactic bureaucracy that's useless to resist. I'm not recalling any where we weren't allowed to run our own affairs, there was some arrangement between the cacogens and Urth in The Book of the New Sun, the Eight Worlds stories had humans removed from Earth for the good of the important species there, the Uplift stories have the aliens adopt a hands-off policy to Earth as a potential crime scene.
I think both Asimov stories "Green Patches" and "Each an Explorer" stop short of having us "hag-ridden" as Heinlein puts it in "The Puppet Masters," but does show how easily it could happen. His story "Hostess" and Varley's "Manikins" suggest we already are.

A small remnant of humanity was treated more kindly in "The Jameson Satellite" and "Dear Devil."

Robots as ruling overlords, as secret overlords, robots trying to keep a dying race going, or revive them when extinct, or just missing us when we're gone -- _City_ has the dogs to also remember us, and the ants, who probably won't. In "Seedling Stars" the results of pantropy outnumber the "true" humans, although they do consider themselves true humans.

_Hothouse_ and _The Night Lands_ show life as a lower form in a hostile landscape, but blame for that position wasn't assigned, it had happened so long ago.

--
-Jack

In article <5e7a6a1f-b7b2-4884-b8d2-2d5d5ddec9ddn@googlegroups.com>,
Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>...Then there's an Eric Frank Russell story
>about an alien planet that was judged "unconquerable," but the
>expedition that found that to be true did not have to stay on amid the
>failure.

Ah, yes, "The Waitabits." They were described as "unconquerable"
by the oddball scout who discovered them. After the survey team
examines the Waitabits and agrees that yes, they are
unconquerable, the scout's next report comes in. It consists of
"Ugh."

I do like Russell.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On 2021-07-09 8:04 a.m., James Nicoll wrote:
> Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
> https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/
>

Sexy Space Babes is interesting because it's part of the HFY (Humanity
Fuck Yeah) family of webfics and yet humanity have been conquered anyway
by giant sized space Amazons...who are not the space babes of the title.
Human men are. The trademark superiority of humans that qualifies it
for HFY consists of human men being regarded as being the sexiest most
available males in the galaxy. A mixed blessing when we're occupied by
millions of sexually frustrated space marines as well as arrogant nobles
who have trouble taking "no" for an answer.

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
> Alien Overlords: Five SF Futures Where Humans Are No Longer in Charge
> https://www.tor.com/2021/07/09/alien-overlords-five-sf-futures-where-humans-are-no-longer-in-charge/

Terry Dowling's _Wormwood_ (1991) is good - it has a Dying Earth
feel, with multiple alien races brought in after the conquest. Public
works by the new rulers include bridges joining all the continents, as air
travel is so passe. A collection of episodes within the setting about
humans getting by.