×
Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.

Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Friday, April 23
20.45
In Stock
Overview
First contact isn't all fun and games.
Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and doesn't have much to show for it. His computer programming skills are producing nothing but pony-themed video games for little girls. His love life is a slow-motion train wreck, and whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth.
Then the aliens show up.
Out of the sky comes the Constellation: a swarm of anarchist anthropologists, exploring our seas, cataloguing our plants, editing our wikis, and eating our Twinkies. No one knows how to respond--except for nerds like Ariel who've been reading, role-playing and wargaming first-contact scenarios their entire lives. Ariel sees the aliens' computers, and he knows that wherever there are computers, there are video games.
Ariel just wants to start a business translating alien games so they can be played on human computers. But a simple cultural exchange turns up ancient secrets, government conspiracies, and unconventional anthropology techniques that threaten humanity as we know it. If Ariel wants his species to have a future, he's going to have to take the step that nothing on Earth could make him take.
He'll have to grow up.
Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and doesn't have much to show for it. His computer programming skills are producing nothing but pony-themed video games for little girls. His love life is a slow-motion train wreck, and whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth.
Then the aliens show up.
Out of the sky comes the Constellation: a swarm of anarchist anthropologists, exploring our seas, cataloguing our plants, editing our wikis, and eating our Twinkies. No one knows how to respond--except for nerds like Ariel who've been reading, role-playing and wargaming first-contact scenarios their entire lives. Ariel sees the aliens' computers, and he knows that wherever there are computers, there are video games.
Ariel just wants to start a business translating alien games so they can be played on human computers. But a simple cultural exchange turns up ancient secrets, government conspiracies, and unconventional anthropology techniques that threaten humanity as we know it. If Ariel wants his species to have a future, he's going to have to take the step that nothing on Earth could make him take.
He'll have to grow up.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781936460236 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Candlemark & Gleam |
Publication date: | 04/10/2012 |
Pages: | 368 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.82(d) |
Customer Reviews
Related Searches
Explore More Items
World War II was only the beginning. When the Night War ravages America, turning it ...
World War II was only the beginning. When the Night War ravages America, turning it
into a country of monsters, humans become a downtrodden minority. Nick Moss is the only human private eye in town, and he's on the trail ...
A hundred years ago, the dragons abandoned Russia and defected to Turkey. Ever since, the
Tarasov family has held the Russian border. Now, as war looms in the south and the century-old mystery of the Defection cracks open, the Tarasovs ...
Her sister swore that she would never let her die; now the entire world may
pay the price.In a land where gods walk beside men and witches defy death, war changes everything. Scholar and warrior, witch and king, priestess and ...
Velocity Wrachant, owner and captain of the merchant starship Susan Calvin, is broke and stranded ...
Velocity Wrachant, owner and captain of the merchant starship Susan Calvin, is broke and stranded
on a Drift station, when she is offered what seems like a simple job: to escort young Brontë Ikeda into Republic space and help her ...
Cassilde Sam is a barely solvent salvage operator, hunting for relics in the ruins left
by the mysterious Ancestors—particularly the color-coded Elements that power most of humanity’s current technology, including the ability to navigate through hyperspace. Cassilde is also steadily ...
I'm hooked. -Larry Niven A first-rate adventure. -Allen Steele BENEATH THE ICESomething is alive inside ...
I'm hooked. -Larry Niven A first-rate adventure. -Allen Steele BENEATH THE ICESomething is alive inside
Jupiter's ice moon Europa. Robot probes find an ancient tunnel beneath the surface, its walls carved with strange hieroglyphics. Led by elite engineer Alexis Vonderach, ...
Webrid is a carter, like his mother and grandfather before him. It's not glamorous work, ...
Webrid is a carter, like his mother and grandfather before him. It's not glamorous work,
but it mostly pays the bills, and it gives him time to ogle the sexy women on the streets of Bexilla's capital. Mostly, he buys ...
Mind Games, a collection of nineteen stories of brave new worlds and alternate realities Clint ...
Mind Games, a collection of nineteen stories of brave new worlds and alternate realities Clint
Brooks, former Senior Advisor for Homeland Security and Assistant Deputy Director, NSA, says: Richard Thieme takes us to the edge of cliffs we know are ...