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eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: On an overpopulated future Earth accustomed to interstellar trade and visitors, a boy named Kim lives with his family in the vast housing projects of Los Angeles. Brighter and cagier than the other boys in the 'projects'--and determined to get what he wants in life--he tries to hire an alien assassin to protect his family...only to discover in what ways he and the hideous creature are 'kin'."

Bruce McAllister has recently sold stories to Glimmer Train, Aeon Speculative Fiction, and F&SF. He's working on a novel tentatively called Emilio and the Water Dragons of Como and on a screenplay version (with former student/close friend/TV and film writer Michael Ajakwe) of his classic SF book, Dream Baby. As a teenager, Bruce corresponded with legendary Analog illustrator John Schoenherr. Bruce was certain that he, too, would someday be an SF magazine illustrator, but Schoenherr told him, "You're crazy, Bruce. Illustration, but it's a very iffy life; if you can write, for God's sake write instead!"

Originally published in the February 2006 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, "Kin" will be included in a Bruce McAllister short story collection, The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, available October 2007 from Golden Gryphon Books.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 2006
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2007

278 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [26 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [32 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [12 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [158 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [12 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [74 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [83 KB] , hiebook (KML) [60 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [38 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [10 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [13 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [41 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [22 KB]
Words: 3809
Reading time: 10-15 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

One boy communes with a creature from outer space. When kinship and obligation bonds of his immediate universe are threatened, Kim goes to extreme defence parameters to protect his unborn sibling. He sets to hire an assassin. One alien, an Antalou, responds to his quest and, in so doing, secures an indissoluble bond. -Eugen Bacon, Fictionwise Recommender

The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened.

The boy was ordinary--the genes of three continents in his features, his clothes cut in the style of all boys in the vast housing project called LAX. The alien was something else, awful to behold; and though the boy knew it was rude, he did not look up as he talked.

He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that simple.

As the boy spoke, the alien sat upright and still on the one piece of furniture that could hold him. Eyes averted, the boy sat on the stool, the one by the terminal where he did his schoolwork each day. It made him uneasy that the alien was on his bed, though he understood why. It made him uneasy that the creature's strange knee was so near his in the tiny room, and he was glad when the creature, as if aware, too, shifted its leg away.

He did not have to look up to see the Antalou's features. That one glance in the doorway had been enough, and it came back to him whether he wanted it to or not. It was not that he was scared, the boy told himself. It was just the idea--that such a thing could stand in a doorway built for humans, in a human housing project where generations had been born and died, and probably would forever. It did not seem possible.

He wondered how it seemed to the Antalou.