Algis J. Budrys. Blood & Burning (1978) Budrys’s imagination is as off the wall as Philip K. Dick’s, and as dark, too. Three samples: In Be Merry, the Klarri have crash-landed their lifeboats on Earth. Humans and Klarri mutually infect each other. One small enclave in New Jersey has found a grim method of healing themselves using Klarr blood.
In All for Love, an impossibly huge spaceship has landed on Earth, apparently in distress. It casually destroys human civilisation, treating humans as pests. The hero manages to make his way to one of the support legs and damage it. The story focuses on the human cost of attempting an impossible task.
In A Scraping of the Bones, extreme overcrowding leads to murder for extra space in the hive-like apartment blocks.
Well imagined, well-written, with a tad too much of the formulaic to be a match for P. K. Dick, but still recommended, if you can find copy. ***
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