Been Blued by Phyllis Twombly Book Review By Jim Cherry The aliens are among us, and they are us! That’s the premise of Phyllis Twombly’s “Been Blued.” At some point in our remote past our ancestors took to space to avoid aliens from invading Earth and reeking havoc. After winning the war in outer space they decided they liked it so much in space that they went out exploring. They made discoveries that altered and improved humans so much they’re now “alien” to those of us on Earth. Due to a crisis they returned in secret to Earth. Jerod Seventeen is one of the returning “aliens.” Due to reconfiguration, he’s had a few different lifetimes on Earth mostly as a doctor. This time, in an effort to mate, his incarnation is that of rakish matinee star. In their travels in space our distant ancestors picked up a symbiotic life form. While initially beneficial improving the humans, eliminating most disease, increasing mental capacities including telepathy, it killed most of the women. The human/aliens found themselves unable to reproduce so they returned to Earth to find women willing to reproduce with the alien humans. Unfortunately, in 300 years of reconfigurations, Jerod has been unable to find a woman willing to mate with him, and to blue him. One of the side effects of having the symbiotic is that when the men fall in love with a female he’s capable of mating with they momentarily turn a shade of blue, hence the aliens have been blued. Jerod finds Kelly the woman who blues him. With that barrier down, others of the “aliens” are finally able to have been blued by human woman. The aliens also have more on their minds than mating to save their species. They seem very traditionally oriented aliens wanting to get married prior to mating. Although, their marriage ceremony is a pretty quick event. Like in all things human, after mating comes children. To save time, and the woman’s comfort, the pregnancy and child rearing is an accelerated process done by computer. When your children are ready they’re introduced to their parents as young adults. It seems their mid to late teens with individual personalities already in full flower. Although, I think some parents would advocate not meeting their children until after the teenage years. Been Blued is a nice light summer read (since it is summer) to entertain yourself while sitting on a sandy beach or on a porch swing with a nice pitcher of iced tea next to you. The adventures Jerod and Kelly experience, are a little episodic as they struggle to integrate the societies, meet with the President of the United States to announce the presence of the “aliens” and there’s some intrigue as some “aliens” and humans are resistant to changes in their societies, no matter how beneficial. But that leaves the reader with natural points to stop and absorb the story to that point or refill the glass with iced tea and continue on. There are a couple cool things in Been Blued that you won’t find in your average science fiction novel. The most noticeable is a symbiont that is beneficial to humans (except that they initially killed all the women) and that the people don’t seem to mind carrying around in their bodies. The second thing would be when computer downloads are made from people the information floats around their foreheads in green lettering before it’s absorbed by the person. There are a couple reservations I have. The biggest would be in the second half of the novel, Ms. Twombly seems to tell much of the information instead of showing it. That is letting the reader get the information organically as the story unfolds. In a couple of instances a problem is presented and is resolved in the following paragraph by having one of the characters explain it what happened instead of letting it happen. And some events happen too effortlessly. Such as Kelly’s acceptance of aliens being on Earth but the acceptance of the situation she finds herself in and falling in love with and mating with Jerod. As I mentioned before, if you’re looking for a nice summertime distraction Been Blued is a highly enjoyable book and I found myself losing myself in the what if’s of the ideas a few times.

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