These stories are simply awesome. Henderson was a devout schoolteacher when she began writing these; the People are the lens thru which she views the US of the late Nineteenth to mid-Twentieth Centuries. Prejudice is a common theme of these tales, harshly realistic while holding fast to love, hope, joy, & wonder. We see ourselves thru their eyes; the view is often uncomfortable, but even the worst humans are shown sympathetically, with the People doing their best to heal & help.
The most recent anthology (In Gathering) collects all of the stories, along with a couple new tales that were never published. The Home (their home planet) is about to destroy itself; they build long-forgotten spaceships to evacuate the planet, yet one of the ships goes astray and breaks up in atomspheric entry to Earth. What follows is decades of searching, surviving, hiding, and trying to fit in without revealing themselves to Earth at large. The People are some the most amazing stories you'll ever read, and you'll find yourself wishing they were real.
Literature Wonderful Classic SF
These stories are simply awesome. Henderson was a devout schoolteacher when she began writing these; the People are the lens thru which she views the US of the late Nineteenth to mid-Twentieth Centuries. Prejudice is a common theme of these tales, harshly realistic while holding fast to love, hope, joy, & wonder. We see ourselves thru their eyes; the view is often uncomfortable, but even the worst humans are shown sympathetically, with the People doing their best to heal & help.
The most recent anthology (In Gathering) collects all of the stories, along with a couple new tales that were never published. The Home (their home planet) is about to destroy itself; they build long-forgotten spaceships to evacuate the planet, yet one of the ships goes astray and breaks up in atomspheric entry to Earth. What follows is decades of searching, surviving, hiding, and trying to fit in without revealing themselves to Earth at large. The People are some the most amazing stories you'll ever read, and you'll find yourself wishing they were real.