From an Alien Perspective

     

     From an Alien Perspective by Jack Petersen.

     From an Alien Perspective is a fun little story about a group of crab-like aliens (Dejan) interacting with humans.  Iadog (the protagonist)  studies with Finnley (the human) in a galactic college.  Iadog was supposed to spy on the humans to learn what he could about their technology, physiology, weaknesses, etc.  But their species' value system is so different that Iadog can't even begin to fathom what is important, and what is not.

     When Iadog's superiors learn of his failure, they capture what they think is Finnley, but it ends up being an android.  They try to torture the human into submission, but their lack of understanding about basic human physiology, let alone not know that they had an android, leads them to more failure.  

     Finnley, for his part, is truly trying to educate the Dejan in hopes that they will leave their odd religious beliefs and join the interstellar community.

     This was a fun way to portray aliens.  We tend to want to portray them with human values and understanding, but Mr. Petersen does a good job at making them something completely different.  There are several short story with this download, but I could only review one, so I picked the first, and longest.

     I'd give it