Artwork by Paul Drummond
Colin Harvey, author and regular reviewer for Strange Horizons, writes for Suite 101:
“Mercurio D. Rivera returns with ‘The Scent of Their Arrival.’ Few writers in SF depict aliens quite as alien as Rivera does, as demonstrated in ‘Longing for Langalana,’ which won the Interzone Reader’s poll of 2006 for Best Story. This time an orbiting spaceship poses a mystery for aliens who communicate by scent rather than sound, in a genre-blurring story that ends IZ214 on a high note.” http://scififantasyfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/interzone_214
• Anthony Williams of SFF Blogwrites:
“The Scent of their Arrival by Mercurio D. Rivera explores the world of planet-bound but intelligent beings who communicate by scent, struggling to understand the message sent by the vast spaceship which had arrived in orbit around their world. All is not what it seems…” http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/
• Gareth D. Jones at Whispers of Wickednesssays:
“I was blown away by Mercurio D. Rivera’s The Scent of Their Arrival; it’s the finest story I’ve read for some time. A pair of alien scientists are attempting to decode a transmission from an orbiting spacecraft. The nuances of their culture and details of their physiology make them an intriguing pair and a story about them would have been interesting by itself. The transmission, which they can’t understand, is from a human, telling of the invasion and decimation of Earth by a trans-dimensional species called the Reviled. It’s a harrowing tale and again could have stood on its own. The culmination of the two tales, although I guessed the ending before it arrived, was stunning in its emotional impact. I shall have to read it again.”
Read the rest of the review of Interzone #214 here.
• BESTSFwrites:
“A second strong SF story. On an alien planet, a race of creatures which use scent rather than speech, to communicate, are attempting to unravel the mysterious transmissions from an orbiting alien spaceship. It has been in orbit for some time, but has made no attempt to land and contact them, and has merely been transmitting a message. The orbiting spaceship is of course of human origin, and we find in the transcriptions of the messages, that humanity has come to a horrific end.
“As the messages progress, the nature of our demise becomes clear – an invading, vampiric race has ravaged Earth. …It’s a page-turner, with Rivera creating a more interesting alien race than is often the case.”
Read the rest of the BEST SF reviews of Interzone #214 here.
• Voracious reader StevenLPwho put ‘Langalana’ on his list of faves for 2006 writes:
“I read the January issues of Asimovs, F&SF and Interzone at the beginning of the month; all had at least one stand-out story (Asimov’s had Tanith Lee’s ”The Beautiful and Damned’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald’; F&SF had John Kessel’s ‘Pride and Prometheus’ and Interzone had Mercurio D. Rivera’s ‘The Scent of their Arrival’)…” http://www.asimovs.com/discus/messages/4/7638.html?1201772240
• Blog Review:
“‘[I]nteresting mish-mash of subgenres here, and probably my favourite story of the issue. The main story is a nice Inverted Communication Difficulties thing, where we’re following aliens who communicate by smell having trouble deciphering the message from a human spaceship in orbit because they don’t understand that you can use sound to communicate (the alien planet is so geologically active as to make this utterly impractical, apparently — I can’t say I’m convinced but I’m prepared to accept it for the sake of argument). The aliens are likeable, in the weird-on-the-outside-human-on-the-inside way that’s never bothered me, and there are a few fun touches to their culture, like their science/religion split somehow falling exactly along their gender divide (men are “supernaturalists”, women are “naturalists”; if it was a longer story I’d want to know a lot more about why and if there are any exceptions, but it was a nice bit of background). Within this, we get to read the log entries as the aliens attempt to decipher them, which tell the story of how the ship came to be launched — a desperate race to escape Earth after the opening of a portal to alternate universes allowed Actual Vampires to overrun the planet, which is not described particularly explicitly but does set up a very grim SF/horror crossover atmosphere.” http://ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com/32508.html
• In a Nutshell:
http://spaceoperareader.blogspot.com/2008/02/scent-of-their-arrival-mercurio-d.html
• Eamonn Murphy of SFCrowsnest writes:
“My favourite tale was ‘The Scent of Their Arrival’ by Mercurio D. Rivera which packed in a lot of ideas and the best aliens I’ve read about since Asimov’s ‘The Gods Themselves’. A good SF story might tell of Earth being invaded by aliens from another dimension. A better one might tell of man’s attempts to flee in starships. This one does all that but also tells of the ship’s arrival at a distant planet and its attempts to negotiate with a very different race. Told from the point of view of an alien couple who communicate by scent the whole thing was marvellous. The ending is like a kick in the guts. Wonderful.”
Read the rest of the SFCrow’s Nest reviews of the stories in this issue of IZ here.
• Sam Tomaino at SFRevu:
“The fiction concludes with a brilliant novelette by Mercurio D. Rivera, “The Scent of Their Arrival.” The inhabitants of another planet wonder why communications from a ship orbiting their planet have been unsuccessful. The problem is that their race communicates by scent. We see the messages from the ship and they are from a future Earth which has been invaded by a race of vampire-like beings. Further, this planet appears to be ruled by inhabitants who are either “supernatualists” or “naturalists”. They cooperate and share power. The story of both Earth and this planet develops in an exciting way with a great finish. This story will be on my Hugo Award short list for next year.”
Read the rest of the SFRevu’s reviews of this issue’s stories here.
• Nick Gevers writes in the March 2008 issue of Locus:
“Interzone for February is fairly impressive, particularly its closing story, “The Scent of Their Arrival” by Mercurio D. Rivera. Here, planetbound aliens whose system of speech relies on smell consider with puzzlement a message coded within a broadcast from a starship recently arrived in orbit. They have not encountered other intelligent beings before, and do not recognize the sounds made by the human speaker as meaningful content; as they gradually piece a partly correct picture together, a truly horrible irony unfolds, in which can be perceived the downfall of not one but many civilizations. This is a cogently nasty tale, a bit redundant here and there, but decidedly chilling.” RECOMMENDED
• Spiral GalaxyReviews writes:
“This is a brilliant story, told in two alternating strands. In one, a human survivor tells the story of the destruction of Earth, documenting its overrun by vampiric creatures from another dimension. It is a bleak and hopeless tale. In the other, two alien scientists try to decipher the transmissions from a ship sitting in orbit over their planet. It’s been sitting there broadcasting for quite some time, but they can’t make any sense of the communication. They’ve isolated the pictures and displayed them, but without a scent track it is unintelligible to them, since their primary form of communication is through chemical scents. While I’m sure scent-based communication has been done before in the literature (in fact it popped up recently in Paul Melko’s excellent novel Singularity’s Ring), this story is very well done. The relationship between the two alien researchers and the world building of their planet and culture are first-rate. The tonal shift between their straight-forward first-contact narrative and the bleak defeatism of the human narration is striking. The ending packs quite a punch as we realize how the threads tie together. The only small criticism I’d have is that the ending’s impact is more intellectual than emotional; it would’ve been a bit better if the reader were so emotionally involved with the aliens that we’d be really shocked and dismayed at their fate instead of going “Wow, so that’s how it all ties together. That’s gonna suck.” As it is however, this is another story that I’ll keep in mind come award-nominating time.”
Read the rest of Spiral Galaxy’s very thorough review of Interzone #214 here.
MISCELLANEOUS:
• I came across this cool illustration for the story by the terrific Paul Drummond, who also drew the cover of IZ #214.
http://www.pauldrummond.co.uk/illustration/gallery_image.php?image=14&category=2
The Scent of Their Arrival was long-listed for Best Short Story for the British Science Fiction Awards, but did not make the short list.