Cover image of "Landscape with Invisible Hand," a novel about an alien invasion

Science fiction is full of clichés about alien invasions of Earth, some evil, some benign. The murderous rampaging monsters that lay waste to the planet. The enigmatic species so different from the human race and so far advanced that communication with them is virtually impossible. The humanoid invaders who blend into contemporary society, either by morphing into human shape or because they themselves resemble human beings since we share common roots. You might think that every possible take on an alien invasion has been done before. Not so. In his new novella, Landscape with Invisible Hand, M. T. Anderson proves the point.

“We were all surprised when the vuvv landed the first time,” Anderson writes. “They’d been watching us since the 1940s, and we’d seen them occasionally, but we had all imagined them differently. They weren’t slender and delicate, and they weren’t humanoid at all. They looked more like granite coffee tables: squat, wide, and rocky. We were just glad they weren’t invading. We couldn’t believe our luck when they offered us their tech and invited us to be part of their Interspecies Co-Prosperity Alliance. They announced that they could end all work forever and cure all disease, so of course, the leaders of the world all rushed to sign up.”


Landscape with Invisible Hand by M. T. Anderson ★★★★☆


Big surprise! This was not a good idea. The story of the sad (and sometimes hilarious) consequences of this peculiar alien invasion is told through the voice of Adam Costello, a seventeen-year-old art student. Adam lives in a decaying middle-class home with his out-of-work parents and his younger sister. Because the vuvv give nothing away free of charge, and jobs are extremely scarce, everyone on Earth has essentially gone broke, with the exception of a small number of super-wealthy people who live in palatial homes that float above the land.

The dollar and every other human currency is virtually worthless in exchange for the vuvv currency, the ch’ch. (“The lowliest vuvv grunt made more in a week than most humans made in two years.”) Adam, his family, and practically everyone he knows are on the verge of starvation. He takes it upon himself to earn money so the family can eat, first with one crazy scheme, then another.

Landscape with Invisible Hand, reflects the same inventiveness and sarcastic humor that so enlivens his popular dystopian young adult novel, Feed. The heading of each short chapter (“A Food Cart in Front of a Strip Mall,” “My Parents’ Bedroom, with the Covers Askew”) represents the title of one of Adam’s paintings. The book is full of surprises.

M. T. Anderson (Matthew Tobin Anderson) wrote fourteen previous novels as well as a number of short stories and picture books. He writes primarily for young adults and children. Anderson won the National Book Award for one of his novels, among other awards.

To read my review of Anderson’s Feed, go to A terrifying vision of the future in an award-winning young adult novel. For a review of another book that features an off-beat alien invasion (in which the humans are the invaders), see Alien encounters of the strange kind in a captivating sci-fi novel.

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