Ingathering: The Complete People Stories
Ingathering: The Complete People Stories
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Ingathering: The Complete People Stories

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Ingathering: The Complete People Stories

Ingathering: The Complete People Stories, also known as Ingathering: The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson, is a 1995 collection of science fiction stories by American science fiction and fantasy author Zenna Henderson. It was edited by Mark L. Olson and Priscilla Olson and published in Massachusetts by the New England Science Fiction Association's NESFA Press as part of their "Choice series". The book contains all seventeen stories Henderson wrote about the People, a group of benevolent human aliens stranded on Earth and struggling to fit in.

The People stories were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction between 1952 and 1980, and novelized, with bridging narratives by Henderson, in two collections: Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (1966). Ingathering includes the 1961 and 1966 collections, four additional People stories published after the aforementioned collections, and a previously unpublished story, "Michal Without". Ingathering also contains an essay on the People series by Henderson, originally published in The Great Science Fiction Series (1980), plus an introduction to the collection by Priscilla Olson and a People stories chronology by Mark and Priscilla Olson.

Ingathering was generally well received by critics. It was a second place finalist in the 1996 Locus Award for Best Collection, and was included in David Brin's "Science Fiction for Young Adults: A Recommended List". Henderson's 1958 novella "Captivity" was a finalist for the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, and her 1955 novelette "Pottage" was loosely adapted into a 1972 television film, The People.

All titles were written by Zenna Henderson, except "Introduction" by Priscilla Olson, and "Chronology of the People Stories" by Mark L. Olson and Priscilla Olson.

Source: Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Henderson's People are a group of benevolent human aliens stranded on Earth after fleeing their doomed homeworld. Their ship broke up in the Earth's atmosphere and the survivors crash-landed in escape pods, scattering them across rural southwestern United States, where the author lived and worked as a teacher. They have psionic abilities, including levitation, telepathy, telekinesis, and healing. The People stories take place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are about these refugees trying to find each other and struggling to blend in with the local population who see them as being different. Henderson's entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that the People's special abilities and moral superiority forces them to live as a wainscot society.

In her essay "The People Series", included in this collection and originally published in 1980 in The Great Science Fiction Series, an anthology edited by Joseph Olander, Martin H. Greenberg and Frederik Pohl, Henderson wrote that her People began as "a weird group [of] refugees from a Transylvania-type country" who had used magic to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But when she found these people too "unpleasant" to write about, she made them benign aliens from another planet. Henderson said, "I think one of the appeals of the People is that they are a possible forgotten side of the coin that seems always to flip to evil, violence, and cruelty."

In a review of Ingathering at Tor.com, Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer Jo Walton recalled the effect reading these stories had on her as a youngster. "[T]hey're the most comforting thing any lonely misunderstood teenager could possibly wish for. They’re about being special and finding other special people." Walton noted that in retrospect the stories are "definitely very old-fashioned" and could even become "a little bor[ing]", but went on to say that "I do like them, even now." She added: "The stories are filled with deep religious sensibility, a profound sense of joy ... [t]hey're beautifully written and very sweet".

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