The sky is full of aliens, and in those early days of Contact, a certain beautiful creature wins the hearts of this world. Blackbird takes humanity under her spell, and we will never be the same.
"To human eyes, the alien was beautiful: That point cannot be made often enough. "Blackbird" was a credible translation of her name, and it was also a reasonable description. She had bright black plumage, sleek and thick, with scarlet highlights circling her two golden eyes as well as the heat-sensitive pit-eye in her forehead. Her jaws were long and unabashedly carnivorous. Seeing her for the first time, most people thought of raptors from the dinosaur days. Like a predatory dinosaur, she had long legs and an erect tail for balance. Like any self-respecting blackbird, she had wings. But critical differences marked her as something from another world. Her wings weren't modified limbs, but instead were the living remains of some treasured meal: Blackbird had killed and feasted upon a bird-like organism, then by means only dimly understood, its wings and supporting bones were grafted into her long back."
Robert Reed is a prolific author, a Huge Award winner, and "Blackbird" hasn't been reprinted in ten years.
Genre: Science Fiction
"To human eyes, the alien was beautiful: That point cannot be made often enough. "Blackbird" was a credible translation of her name, and it was also a reasonable description. She had bright black plumage, sleek and thick, with scarlet highlights circling her two golden eyes as well as the heat-sensitive pit-eye in her forehead. Her jaws were long and unabashedly carnivorous. Seeing her for the first time, most people thought of raptors from the dinosaur days. Like a predatory dinosaur, she had long legs and an erect tail for balance. Like any self-respecting blackbird, she had wings. But critical differences marked her as something from another world. Her wings weren't modified limbs, but instead were the living remains of some treasured meal: Blackbird had killed and feasted upon a bird-like organism, then by means only dimly understood, its wings and supporting bones were grafted into her long back."
Robert Reed is a prolific author, a Huge Award winner, and "Blackbird" hasn't been reprinted in ten years.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Robert Reed's Blackbird