The boffins have detected peculiar signals coming from...Planetty MacPlanetFace. No-one can listen to the signals for very long without getting a blinding migraine. Since it is unlikely that something so mindbogglingly annoying could have evolved purely by chance, the boffins conclude that Someone must be trying very hard to get our attention. So not one but two space ships are sent to investigate.
The previous volume, Nearly Neptune, ended on a small cliffhanger: Chris Godfrey was offered the job of deputy director of UNEXA on condition he gave up being an astronaut. We have already been told that astronauts retire at the age of forty, and it is very hard to see how he can be less than thirty-seven at this point. First Contact? begins in media res with the mission already well under way. It turns out that Chris is in command for one last trip. The American One, the Russian One, and the Working Class One from the previous volumes are all present and correct, and the empty spaces are filled by The Welsh One, the Scots One, the Bald One and the Not-Bald One. They really aren’t characterised beyond this. Mervyn Williams (really) has a poetic soul. During a space walk he intones “Beautiful it is, like a great black mantle with diamonds sewn all over it”. This is very much the kind of book in which people "intone" things. They also "splutter" them, "gasp" them and "murmur" them. But they hardly ever just "say" them.
A charming sense of amateurism pervades the proceedings. No-one seems to have given a moment’s consideration to what Chris will actually do if he encounters Aliens. You might think some diplomats, heads of state, anthropologists and even philosophers would be on hand to advise him, but everyone is fine with the chaps on the rocket-ship just winging it.
The unstated assumption seems to be that astronauts are a special class of human being, and that only someone who is good at “being an astronaut” can possibly be sent into space. It’s a little like the idea that there is a quality called “the right stuff” — quite distinct from aptitude — and it is that which makes someone a great test-pilot. Certainly our heroes have technical know-how — we are told that the ship has banks of hard to understand controls — but plot points always turn on things which the boffins on Earth and Tony (the Working Class one) on the space ship have cobbled together. When the strange sounds being emitted by Planetty McPlanetface render communication between the two ships impossible, Tony improvises a morse code machine from bits and pieces on the ships. The Boffs on earth borrow one from a museum. Sir George Benson (the outgoing director) works out how the signals work by playing them to himself in his back garden, moving his wheel chair to various distances to calculate the range of the migraine effect. He has to go down the road to the electrical shop to buy an extension cable!
These kinds of details make it easy for us to put ourselves in the heroes' place, and imagine that we ourselves are out there enjoying all the diamonds and black velvet. During the communication crisis, Tony decides that the best thing to do is make a space-walk to the other ship and explain the problem to them face-to-face; and Walters takes us slowly through him putting on the space suit, stepping out of the air-lock, navigating his way through empty space... It’s not the only way of writing for kids, but it works. It’s very much the technique which makes Enid Blyton and JK Rowling so compelling for anyone under the age of eleven and so unbearable for anyone older.
So: the boys land on Planetty McPlanetface. There really is an Alien space craft there — all knobbly and un-aerodynamic and without a proper door. Communications are established and the Alien invites a delegation aboard for a face-to-face meeting.
The ship turns out to come from another solar system, where there is no death, no gravity, and a different shaped gear-stick on the Mini Metro. It doesn’t need doors because Aliens have mastered the art of walking through walls. It travels faster than the speed of light along concentrated gravity beams that criss-cross the galaxy. The Alien itself is aloof, but friendly and humanoid and good looking. The Not-Bald-One thinks he looks like an archangel, although the Bald-One points out the Lucifer was a fallen angel.
Chris takes the Alien at its word. But Morey (the American one) thinks Chris has trusted the angelic extraterrestrial far too easily and probably been mind-controlled. When Chris and the others do not return from their second sojourn on the vessel, he decides that the most sensible course of action would be to blow up the Alien Spaceship and return home. He plans to take control of one of the Earth ships and go kamikaze. Nothing we know about Morey has given us any reason to think that he would be this reckless. I was kind of waiting for the revelation that he was the one who had been hypnotised.
The Alien of course, knows what is happening immediately. He takes control of the suicide ship and it bounces harmlessly off his force-field. But far from sending Morey to stand outside the headmaster’s office, the Alien pats him on the head and tells him that he has been a very brave boy. After all, he truthfully thought the Alien was evil, and was courageously prepared to lay down his life to protect the human race. But clearly, humans are not yet ready to join the wider galactic community, so everyone is sent back to earth with a jolly good mind-wipe. The amnesiac astronauts tell the boffins that although they believe they saw an Alien spaceship, by the time they landed, it had disappeared; so they turned around and came straight home.
The story ends on another dot-dot-dot moment: George Benson realises that they were actually on the planet for several days and something is being concealed.
The previous volume, Nearly Neptune, ended on a small cliffhanger: Chris Godfrey was offered the job of deputy director of UNEXA on condition he gave up being an astronaut. We have already been told that astronauts retire at the age of forty, and it is very hard to see how he can be less than thirty-seven at this point. First Contact? begins in media res with the mission already well under way. It turns out that Chris is in command for one last trip. The American One, the Russian One, and the Working Class One from the previous volumes are all present and correct, and the empty spaces are filled by The Welsh One, the Scots One, the Bald One and the Not-Bald One. They really aren’t characterised beyond this. Mervyn Williams (really) has a poetic soul. During a space walk he intones “Beautiful it is, like a great black mantle with diamonds sewn all over it”. This is very much the kind of book in which people "intone" things. They also "splutter" them, "gasp" them and "murmur" them. But they hardly ever just "say" them.
A charming sense of amateurism pervades the proceedings. No-one seems to have given a moment’s consideration to what Chris will actually do if he encounters Aliens. You might think some diplomats, heads of state, anthropologists and even philosophers would be on hand to advise him, but everyone is fine with the chaps on the rocket-ship just winging it.
The unstated assumption seems to be that astronauts are a special class of human being, and that only someone who is good at “being an astronaut” can possibly be sent into space. It’s a little like the idea that there is a quality called “the right stuff” — quite distinct from aptitude — and it is that which makes someone a great test-pilot. Certainly our heroes have technical know-how — we are told that the ship has banks of hard to understand controls — but plot points always turn on things which the boffins on Earth and Tony (the Working Class one) on the space ship have cobbled together. When the strange sounds being emitted by Planetty McPlanetface render communication between the two ships impossible, Tony improvises a morse code machine from bits and pieces on the ships. The Boffs on earth borrow one from a museum. Sir George Benson (the outgoing director) works out how the signals work by playing them to himself in his back garden, moving his wheel chair to various distances to calculate the range of the migraine effect. He has to go down the road to the electrical shop to buy an extension cable!
These kinds of details make it easy for us to put ourselves in the heroes' place, and imagine that we ourselves are out there enjoying all the diamonds and black velvet. During the communication crisis, Tony decides that the best thing to do is make a space-walk to the other ship and explain the problem to them face-to-face; and Walters takes us slowly through him putting on the space suit, stepping out of the air-lock, navigating his way through empty space... It’s not the only way of writing for kids, but it works. It’s very much the technique which makes Enid Blyton and JK Rowling so compelling for anyone under the age of eleven and so unbearable for anyone older.
So: the boys land on Planetty McPlanetface. There really is an Alien space craft there — all knobbly and un-aerodynamic and without a proper door. Communications are established and the Alien invites a delegation aboard for a face-to-face meeting.
The ship turns out to come from another solar system, where there is no death, no gravity, and a different shaped gear-stick on the Mini Metro. It doesn’t need doors because Aliens have mastered the art of walking through walls. It travels faster than the speed of light along concentrated gravity beams that criss-cross the galaxy. The Alien itself is aloof, but friendly and humanoid and good looking. The Not-Bald-One thinks he looks like an archangel, although the Bald-One points out the Lucifer was a fallen angel.
Chris takes the Alien at its word. But Morey (the American one) thinks Chris has trusted the angelic extraterrestrial far too easily and probably been mind-controlled. When Chris and the others do not return from their second sojourn on the vessel, he decides that the most sensible course of action would be to blow up the Alien Spaceship and return home. He plans to take control of one of the Earth ships and go kamikaze. Nothing we know about Morey has given us any reason to think that he would be this reckless. I was kind of waiting for the revelation that he was the one who had been hypnotised.
The Alien of course, knows what is happening immediately. He takes control of the suicide ship and it bounces harmlessly off his force-field. But far from sending Morey to stand outside the headmaster’s office, the Alien pats him on the head and tells him that he has been a very brave boy. After all, he truthfully thought the Alien was evil, and was courageously prepared to lay down his life to protect the human race. But clearly, humans are not yet ready to join the wider galactic community, so everyone is sent back to earth with a jolly good mind-wipe. The amnesiac astronauts tell the boffins that although they believe they saw an Alien spaceship, by the time they landed, it had disappeared; so they turned around and came straight home.
The story ends on another dot-dot-dot moment: George Benson realises that they were actually on the planet for several days and something is being concealed.