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Apr. 21st, 2022 07:57 amI just read Kinesis by Irene Wendy Wode.
So there’s this race of alien hive-minded shapeshifters who’ve been trying and failing to make peace with humanoids. The idea they eventually come up with is to have one of them shapeshift into a humanoid who doesn’t remember being a shapeshifter. This humanoid identity is fascinated by the shapeshifters and wants to understand them, so he can make peace with them from the other side of the gap.
After years of study, the humanoid finally discovers how to interpret the shapeshifter language. He’s completed a project he can present before the other humanoids, and so his memories of his life as a shapeshifter return. After a lifetime of feeling strange and isolated among the humanoids, he can rejoin the collective.
Except there’s nothing to rejoin. A third alien race infested the shapeshifters like a worm in an apple, and it hollowed out their minds. If he ever longs too desperately to rejoin the hive mind, ever lets his guard down and gives in to his natural instincts, the infection will destroy him too.
This isn’t even the end of chapter 1.
P.S. This main character is a good example of what![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stardust_rifle was describing in a recent post: technically genderless, but can still gay-kiss a dude.
So there’s this race of alien hive-minded shapeshifters who’ve been trying and failing to make peace with humanoids. The idea they eventually come up with is to have one of them shapeshift into a humanoid who doesn’t remember being a shapeshifter. This humanoid identity is fascinated by the shapeshifters and wants to understand them, so he can make peace with them from the other side of the gap.
After years of study, the humanoid finally discovers how to interpret the shapeshifter language. He’s completed a project he can present before the other humanoids, and so his memories of his life as a shapeshifter return. After a lifetime of feeling strange and isolated among the humanoids, he can rejoin the collective.
Except there’s nothing to rejoin. A third alien race infested the shapeshifters like a worm in an apple, and it hollowed out their minds. If he ever longs too desperately to rejoin the hive mind, ever lets his guard down and gives in to his natural instincts, the infection will destroy him too.
This isn’t even the end of chapter 1.
P.S. This main character is a good example of what
stardust_rifle was describing in a recent post: technically genderless, but can still gay-kiss a dude.
