They never meant to come to Earth. They were never allowed to leave…Welcome to Cottonwood.Excerpt:“You should have heard it, Kate. It was subtle, but it wasn’t my imagination. The guy spent five hours essentially telling us that the aliens are retarded.”“Oh come on.”“Not in so many words, but—hang on.” Sarah moved the paz to her other hand so that she could lay her right arm over Fagin’s back, … could lay her right arm over Fagin’s back, since he was being insistent about it. “But he just really drilled it in,” she continued, resigned. “Over and over, really soft and gentle. ‘They’re not smart, they don’t take care of themselves, they need to be controlled.’”
Kate’s tiny image on the screen flickered as she shifted her own paz and had trouble restabilizing. The two weren’t exactly compatible anymore. She really needed to get a new one. “So? Maybe they do.”
“And maybe they don’t. Kate!” she said, trying to laugh through her frustration. “These people came to us in a spaceship! A planet full of stupid layabouts does not master intergalactic space travel!”
Kate’s image flickered again and snapped to black. She didn’t need it. She could hear the distraction in Kate’s voice, and the tight I’m-pretending-I’m-not-angry tone that had been her default setting pretty much since Sarah told her she was really moving to Cottonwood. “Okay, so the guy who’s been studying them for twenty years is wrong and Sarah Fowler, who hasn’t even met one yet, is right. Congratulations. You’re that good.”
Sarah felt herself blush. “It didn’t sound right, that’s all I’m saying. Some of the little things he said just…just really got to me.”
“Like what?” Kate asked, sounding concerned now and not big-sister patronizing.
“Like…Like he said that if their claspers came off, they’d die.”
A short pause. “What are claspers?”
“Oh, that’s not the point, they’re like tiny little extra arms that smell things. The point is, how many aliens had to lose their claspers and die without having any other…What’s the word I want? Variables?”
Kate was quiet for a while. The picture tried to come back a few times, showing Sarah glimpses of her sister through a haze of multi-colored distortion. “These guys are professionals, Sarah. It’s their job to make connections that people like us miss.”
“Yeah, but how did so many aliens lose their claspers in the first place, that’s what I really want to—”
“Did your house come with a phone?”
“Huh? Um, yeah.” She twisted to look up at it, clinging to the wall like a shiny, black beetle. “But it’s patched into the IBI switchboard. I can’t figure out how to get a line outside the village. I could look it up in the manual, but—” She laughed. “—I’m kind of manualed-out. I had to set everything, you have no idea. All the faucets are TruTouch. Who the heck even knows off-hand how many degrees they like their shower? Or their drinking water? Plus, I got my Fahrenheit and my Celsius screwed up and practically steamed-cooked my face off the first time I…Why?” She checked the paz’s signal, but it looked good. “Can’t you hear me okay?”
“I hear you. I was just curious. So this is your own paz?”
“Yeah,” said Sarah, still trying to see where this was going. “But they scanned it in through the company server when I got here. You know. So I can’t take pictures or blog about company policy or stuff. They said it wouldn’t affect my performance. I mean, I can barely see you, but—”
“That’s normal for the fossil you’re using,” Kate agreed. In a new, hearty voice, she added, “TruTouch faucets, those are awesome!”
“They gave me all sorts of things, it’s hilarious. There’s a plasmapanel TV in the living room, and all the appliances, even a coffee machine.”
“Another TruTouch?”
“No, it’s one of the Konaluv models and it’s crazy, I don’t know what half of those settings even mean. I tried to make a simple cup of coffee when I got home. I think I programmed it to spit out sixteen double-caff cappuccinos at midnight on the first day of 2045. Happy New Year.”
Kate laughed…
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I love this book!!! I liked the characters and the story. I read it in record time.
Review by PussnBooks.net
There are brilliant authors out there and I go to each of them depending on what I want to feel. But when I need to immerse myself completely in another world and forget that mine even exists, I go to R Lee Smith.
When I want to really feel a book deep down in my soul and fall in love with its characters, I go to R Lee Smith.
When I wan to experience something I’ve never experienced before, I go to R Lee Smith.
When I want to have my heart ripped out, beaten and then returned to me as a shadow of its former self, I go to R Lee Smith.
She is not the kind of author to fill you with temporary fluffiness, but instead, the kind that makes you think and discover dark corners of your mind that you didn’t know were even there.
This book was soul destroyingly beautiful (if you can wrap your head around that, well done, lol).
It was deep and so much more than I thought it was going to be (I, of course, should have known better. It is R Lee Smith after all).
SARAH
This is a woman with a pure and innocent soul. She gets a job working for the IBI, who are meant to be helping the aliens integrate. Helping them be safe and find their own way on our planet.
Sarah goes into this thinking that she can help, make a difference but is disgusted by what she sees.
Hidden from the outside world is what is basically a concentration camp.
These aliens, referred to as “Bugs”, are treated so badly, it is a wonder they have survived at all in the last 20 years since arriving accidentally on our planet.
Sarah wants to help them but, not surprisingly, is met with hostility and aggression. They don’t trust her.
Except for one male. Sanford.
The things Sarah does while trying to help as many as she can is inspiring to be honest. And everywhere she turns they are against her. But she doesn’t quit.
The punishments are brutal and terrifying.
SANFORD
How Ms Smith can make me feel sexually attracted to a giant bug is beyond me but, the things I feel for this “man” are deep.
He is a bug with honour, patience and respect. A father with limitless love for his son and a lover with a ribbed penis (whoop!).
The story of what happened to him and all of his brethren in the last twenty years is nothing short of heartbreaking.
The pain and suffering that they have had to endure…I don’t know about you but, I’m imagining the Jewish people back during WW2, and I can’t even…
SEX SCENES
There weren’t many but when they did come together you felt the emotional connection right along with the characters. Some of the scenes were really amusing and some quite a turn on but, that’s not what the book is about.
FINAL THOUGHTS on COTTONWOOD by R Lee Smith
I cried I laughed, I got a little turned on, I hoped, I agonised and I rejoiced, over and over throughout this book.
I felt things…lot’s of things and I thought about things that I would never have thought about before reading this story.
It is deep, dark and thought-provoking. I shall carry it in my heart for a very long time.
5 Stars
This book weaves magic …
This book was an emotional read for me. I was devastated many times throughout the storyline with the cruelty that can be inflicted on another living being. Sarah is a character that I would hope I could in some degree emulate if I ever found myself faced with such awful circumstances. It did have a positive message for me too. Love can see past any physical attributes into the soul of another being. Sanford and Sarah never gave in or up no matter what the tribulation . I would say read this one with a open heart and mind. It will stay in my memory for a long time to come.
3rd book read by this author.
Set in the future, bug type aliens travelling trough space on a colonist mission crash land on earth. They came by accident, in peace, they were locked up, kept in slums and abused by humans.
Sandford and son ‘live’ in cotton wood….they are aware of how the human world works…until one day they meet their social work liaison….their caseworker…a human….. bright eyed, enthusiastic sarah.
Phew….this book!
Compared to the other two books I’ve read by this author was by far high up on the happy ever after spectrum ( if you know R LEE SMITH…you will know her books can be quite gritty and the trials her charachters face quite harrowing..which is true in this books case~ however it had a beautiful ‘happier’ ending then I was expecting ) but holy space bugs…there was a hell of a journey physically and metaphorically speaking to get there.
I adored this book, it was beautiful, dark, disturbing and touching…it still amazes me how a book can be all of those things and many more but this author is amazing gifted in the art of ‘MAJOR FEELS’.
District 9 it ain’t….it’s waaaaay better!
R Lee Smith is by far the best author for alien/human interaction. Her writing style is so on point.
I read the author’s note on Cottonwood and really felt for her and the angst over whether or not to put out this book.
But I’m sooooooo glad she did!
The story is well written, humourous, horrifying, suspenseful, with pathos, passion and an innocence that charms you, even through the most terrible scenes.
This is not an exaggeration.
I would love a sequel to this, but R Lee Smith made it clear there aren’t any on the cards for this or her other works ‘Heat’ or ‘The Last Hour of Gann’.
Pity.