Key Lime Sky

Key Lime Sky

by Al Hess
Genres: Fiction / LGBTQ+ / Bisexual, Fiction / Science Fiction / Alien Contact
Published on August 13, 2024
Pages: 304
Format: eBook Source: Owned

An alien invasion hits the town of Muddy Gap, but a disgruntled pie aficionado is the only one who seems to remember it…

Denver Bryant’s passion for pie has sent him across Wyoming in search of the best slices. Though he dutifully posts reviews on his blog, he’s never been able to recreate his brief moment of viral popularity, and its trickling income isn’t enough to pay his rent next month. 

Driving home from a roadside diner, Denver witnesses a UFO explode directly over his tiny town of Muddy Gap. When he questions his neighbors, it appears that Denver is the only person to have seen anything – or to care that the residents’ strange behavior, as well as a shower of seashell hail, might be evidence of something extraterrestrial. Being both non-binary and autistic, he’s convinced his reputation as the town eccentric is impeding his quest for answers. Frustrated, he documents the bizarre incidents on his failing pie blog, and his online popularity skyrockets. His readers want the truth, spurring him to get to the bottom of things.

The only person in town who takes him seriously is handsome bartender, Ezra. As the two investigate over pie and the possibility of romance, the alien presence does more than change the weather. People start disappearing. When Denver and Ezra make a run for it, the town refuses to let them leave. Reality is folding in on itself. It’s suddenly a race against time to find the extraterrestrial source and destroy it before it consumes not only Muddy Gap but everything beyond. Denver’s always been more outsider than hero, but he’s determined to ensure that a world with Ezra – and with pie – still exists tomorrow.

I’m always looking for science fiction that falls more on the cozy side of the spectrum than on the hard side. I just discovered Al Hess and I’m loving his books.

Key Lime Sky is a great introduction.  Denver is a blogger who reviews pies.  He’s nonbinary and autistic.  He considers himself to be the town eccentric in Muddy Gap Wyoming.  He doesn’t think that his neighbors much care for him.  They call him Professor Pie.  He cares a lot about them but that tends to come out in awkward ways.  He’s the kind of person who would tell you that your hair looks bad today because he genuinely wouldn’t want you to walk around and be embarrassed later about how you had looked. 

So when he sees a UFO explode over the town and no one listens to him, he doesn’t know if it is because it didn’t happen or if it is because no one ever takes him seriously. This is a near future world.  Instead of communicating on phones, there are interfaces in contact lenses.  Denver is writing a blog post about a very sad piece of cherry pie but starts just talking about seeing this UFO.  His blog goes viral as he posts more and more weird things going on in town until all communication is cut off. 

“No one would choose me to be an action hero. No one even wants me as their neighbor!”

There are only a few people left in town eventually and they are trying to figure out how to survive.  They can’t even agree on what survival looks like.  Escape?  Fighting the alien?  Setting up a new society?

“You think we’re going to get ourselves killed? Do you think those camo ensembles of yours are going to do you any good? Look around. You need outfits patterned in shopping carts and Boot Barns.”

This is a story where having a brain that works a little differently turns out to an asset to figuring out solutions to problems.  Other people step up to help when Denver needs to be able to read social situations.  Everyone can figure out where they can fit in.  

There is also a lot of LGBTQ+ representation in the story.  Denver is non-binary.  He becomes romantically involved with a pansexual man.  One of the other people remaining in town in a trans woman.  

You also have to love a hero blogger.  His comment section is trying to figure out the mystery with him and he is cut off from posting they panic.  Come for the pie reviews and stay to save the world!