After They Came by Dan Harary; Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Genius Book Publishing © 2023; ISBN 9781958-727027; 334 pages; $22.95 on Amazon.
SAN DIEGO – Imagine a benevolent race of aliens, possessing technologies many thousand-fold more advanced than those on Earth, select you, for no apparent reason, to communicate humankind’s most pressing problems so they could fix them.
That’s what happens in this science fiction novel to Jonathan Michael Tuckerman, a 70-year-old Jewish man on the day, of all days, that he attempts to commit suicide. He would have succeeded in that goal if the Benevolent Beings hadn’t beamed him up to their spaceship from the freezing ocean in which he had sought his demise.
After the disoriented Tuckerman comes to understand what has happened to him, he meets with the aliens once a month to proffer a new problem to be solved. Nuclear missiles, group hatred, global freshwater shortages; climate change, and incurable physical and mental diseases are just some of the issues that the aliens tackle at his behest …. successfully! All this is done in full view of the media and the rest of humanity.
As the world watches these miracles, Tuckerman becomes an international celebrity, with a sizeable following that makes those of rock stars seem puny. The President of the United States befriends him, and so do the leaders of every other country. He is granted a suite of offices at the United Nations so delegations can call upon him. His estranged adult children come back to him. A beautiful young doctor who treats him after his return to Earth, falls in love with him, and he happily reciprocates.
The aliens are very gracious to him, and for some reason, they want to act and speak only through him. However, he is allowed to bring friends and family members to these interviews, which occur on the hovering spaceship. What is the secret that prompts them to elevate this broken man into a world hero? A hero, incidentally, who can never believe his good luck, or his new status, and who rebuffs every attempt to credit him for the miracles the Benevolent Ones accomplish. He is unworthy of lionization, Tuckerman insists. All credit belongs to the Benevolent Ones. The more he so modestly protests, the more the world adores him.
Much later in the book, the secret is revealed why the aliens chose Tuckerman, but I would do you readers a disservice if I told you the answer. I’m sure you’d rather guess and then learn as you read further whether you guessed correctly or incorrectly.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com