Eye of the Beholder is a complete science fiction novel (~107,000 words, professionally edited).
The Most Powerful Premise for Science Fiction: We live in astronomy's greatest age of discovery. The search for new worlds orbiting distant stars is now focused on billions of Earthlike exoplanets in the Milky Way. We’re trying to answer humanity’s most compelling question: are we alone in the Universe? Credible speculation about alien life requires the discipline of hard SF. Myriad possibilities are constrained by the laws of physics and Darwinian evolution. Nothing stirs the imagination more.
Short Summary: The leitmotif of Eye of the Beholder is alien aesthetics. Schopenhauer thought that all art forms are inferior to music. Invading aliens, desperate and barely surviving after a millennium journey, were surprised but unimpressed by human technological civilization. But human artistic beauty inspired them. In a pivotal moment they experienced Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G-minor, which made them suspend their campaign to conquer Earth with a sudden ice age. Only a shared sense of beauty can avert climate catastrophe and a war of extinction. Eventually, climate control technology doubles the habitable land on Earth – now shared with the alien refugees.
Psyche Alien
© GB Immega 2014 – 2022
Crystal Sphere Space Suit; Communication via
Spark-Gap Biological Radio
Synopsis: Astronomer and autistic savant, Cortez Cozby, can’t relate to people. But he doesn't have to, since his grand observatory is on Far Side on the Moon. Then, without warning, the sun dims—something has throttled sunlight to Earth. Using powerful lunar telescopes, Cortez discovers an alien starship hiding behind the iron asteroid 16 Psyche.
After a voyage of a thousand years in deep sleep hibernation, "Psyche" extraterrestrials—refugees from a doomed world—wake to discover a recent industrial civilization on Earth. Instead of an empty, pristine planet, their destination world is now occupied by billions of humans.
The Psyche aliens, exhausted and barely surviving, cannot return or divert to a different star—they must make a new home on Earth or die. Too weak to risk a frontal attack, they create a cold catastrophe by using a cloud of solar sailing mirrors to reflect sunlight away from Earth. Cities starve when crops freeze in summer; civilization starts to collapse. Cortez's estranged daughter, Astrid, an idealistic young heliophysicist in California, struggles to survive food riots and cultist vandals. Meanwhile, a counterattack with nuclear weapons fails to destroy the Psyches’ solar mirrors.
Using his sensitive radio telescope, Cortez makes contact with a rogue alien similar to himself—marginalized, alone, and vulnerable. While decoding the tonal syntax of the Psyche musical language, Cortez befriends the mysterious creature, who he names Sparker. Alien aesthetics and a brave love of beauty in an implacable universe provide a common bond. Through an exchange of music and art, Cortez learns how to relate to the aliens and also fellow humans, including his daughter.
Cortez’s discovery leads to an aesthetic outpouring, where the best human art is transmitted to the Psyches. The peace offering is temporarily successful—normal sun shines briefly but freezing weather returns. The Psyches revere human beauty but they need more than exquisite art to survive.
Sparker, the isolated alien refugee, visits Cortez on the Far Side of the Moon. The extraterrestrials are profoundly different from humans: crab-like carnivores, hermaphroditic cannibals, who communicate via electrical sparks to make biological radio signals. Cortez shelters Sparker, but he and the enemy alien are captured by the US military and taken to Cape Canaveral.
Sparker and Cortez are imprisoned in an abandoned warehouse in Florida’s now-frigid weather. Cortez provides the lexical key to decipher the Psyches’ musical language. While at the Cape, Sparker is shocked to learn that his species has caused environmental disaster by freezing Earth. Eventually, with Cortez’ and Astrid’s help, Sparker sends a secret radio message to the alien mothership orbiting 16 Psyche. The Psyche aliens respond by tipping the orbiting the space mirrors edgewise to allow the sun to shine normally again.
Sparker views the Atlantic Ocean and then breaks free to make a dash for the water. Once submerged, Sparker undergoes metamorphosis and becomes a non-sentient adult, a sessile bag that spawns eggs into the ocean. Cortez and the Navy Seals realize that the Psyche aliens have succeeded in invading Earth. Cortez has lost Sparker, his only friend, but assumes the task of rearing some of Sparker’s babies. A CIA black site is established at the Cape to study the Psyches. Cortez forms a relationship with exo-biologist, Paloma, thus completing his transformation from autistic savant to empathetic human.
The Psyche mothership eventually reaches Earth orbit, a huge threat to the world. The Psyches demand colony sites on Earth—after wreaking environmental disaster and killing billions of humans. As compensation, the Psyches offer regional climate control.
Discussions at the UN result in Cuba offering an alien sanctuary at Guantánamo Bay. The Psyches accept, but the colony is actually a cruel concentration camp. Cortez and Paloma visit the colony and facilitate a Psyche escape to the salt water, averting a diplomatic crisis and renewed war with the Psyches.
The novel ends with Astrid facilitating global climate control. Cortez's friendship with the Psyches enables Astrid to lead the way out of the calamity, now applying alien solar mirror technology to re-warm the planet. But this comes at a price: humans must agree to share Earth with these terrifying creatures. Can the Psyches be trusted?
Appendices: Five science appendices are included to support the technical credibility of the novel (see Science Fiction Notes, next section).
Major Themes explored in The Eye of the Beholder include:
1. Character transformation; [Cortez’ character arc shows the humanizing influence of music and nurturing.];
2. Beauty and art can form a universal bridge between cultures, including humans and aliens; [Aesthetics are more important than technology or science.]
3. The necessity of acceptance of the “other”; [Society is richer and better for tolerating and welcoming differing groups.]
4. Life is precarious in a hostile universe; [Terrifying and destructive aliens nonetheless love beauty and struggle to survive.];
5. Geo-engineered global climate is inevitable; [If human society survives for another 100 years, we will control climate (but not weather).]
Two Sequels to The Eye of the Beholder have been outlined scene-by-scene:
Book 2: Light Fantastic; [The geopolitical and environmental consequences of climate control.]
Book 3: Garden of Earth; [A Psyche alien POV story of the colonization of Earth.]