The Spaceship Next Door

By Gene Doucette

When a spaceship lands in Sorrow Falls, a lovable and fearless small-town girl is the planet’s only hope for survival

Three years ago, a spaceship landed in an open field in the quiet mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts. It never opened its doors, and for all that time, the townspeople have wondered why the ship landed there, and what—or who—could be inside.

Then one day a government operative—posing as a journalist—arrives in town, asking questions. He discovers sixteen-year-old Annie Collins, one of the ship’s closest neighbors and a local fixture known throughout the town, who has some of the answers.

As a matter of fact, Annie Collins might be the most important person on the planet. She just doesn’t know it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781328567543

Gene Doucette

GENE DOUCETTE is the author of more than twenty sci-fi and fantasy titles, including The Spaceship Next Door and The Frequency of Aliens, the Immortal series, Fixer and Fixer Redux, Unfiction, and the Tandemstar books. Gene lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews for The Spaceship Next Door

[tuusannuuska-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4,25 stars

There are two possibilities: either I'm rating the books I'm reading way too high at the moment, or my book year just happened to get off to a really good start. Either way, I found this a very enjoyable read. And unexpectedly funny. I think it may have been a really good idea to listen to this in audiobook format, because I don't think my inner narrator would have done anywhere near as good a job as Steve Carlson in capturing the voices of all the characters.

As a story, this was a pretty light one, as YA books often tend to be. Often, I found myself thinking about what the current scene would have looked like in movie format, and the humor of the sixteen-year-old Annie Collins was right up my alley (so I'm juvenile, sue me). There might have been a slight Juno-effect in that Annie wasn't entirely believable as a sixteen-year-old, especially in relation to adults in the book. The again, this was a book about a spaceship landing in a small town in the United States, so I guess realism wasn't really the main goal of the story to begin with.

[sdramsey-298717 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed every moment of this fast-paced, fun, and funny book. The characters really came to life in the audiobook narration, and I particularly liked the main character. Definitely recommended for YA readers!

[majkia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful, funny, imaginative.

[grandpahobo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a really good story, with realistic and quirky characters.

[guide2_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very different take on first contact that was very enjoyable for most of the book, but not convinced how the ending was so "resolved".

[macygma · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best things about The Spaceship Next Door is the sarcasm. The author writes like I think. Example: Joanne’s Diner doesn’t have a Joanne (it does, however; have a Beth). Annie Collins’ – teenager, heroine, geek – best friend Violet, lives in a cabin in the remote hills without electricity but with two parents who are, to say it politely, odd.One August night in Sorrow Falls, MA a spaceship landed in a field. It didn’t do anything else for three years. Then things began to happen. First there were odd noises, then zombies, then Annie figures it out. This book was GREAT!! I loved the characters, the dialogue, the descriptions, the whole shebang! Take a chance on this one, it was written in 2015 and a sequel is now out titled The Frequency of Aliens. I’m picking it up tomorrow.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a book I liked a lot more than I thought I was going to. It sounded like the kind of science fiction I prefer, but once into it I thought it was a little too YA for my tastes. However, I kept getting pulled along and eventually couldn't put it down. In fact, I liked it so much that I just paid for the sequel because my library doesn't have it.It's been three years since a spaceship landed in the small Massachusetts town of Sorrow Falls. The ship looks like a black box, big enough for only a couple of people; since the day it landed it's never made any noise or movement. The townspeople have gotten used to it, and to the army base which sprang up next to it to keep an eye on it, and life has gone back to normal, albeit augmented by a group of campers parked nearby housing UFO believers. 16-year year old Annie is well-known and liked by pretty much everyone in town, including the UFO contingent. Her mother is dying of cancer and her father is absent, so Annie does all the shopping and has a small job at the local diner. This particular summer vacation, a government planner and researcher, Ed, claiming to be a reporter, shows up and is advised by the base general to use Annie as a guide for meeting people and getting local color. He's astonished to discover she really is known and trusted by everyone, so he's able to get information from people who are sick to death of reporters. They in turn figure out that he's not really a reporter and are a bit more cooperative. He begins to find vague corroboration for his conclusion that the ship is waking up.How Annie really fits into what's happening, and what happens to the townspeople as the ship subtly affects them, makes the story more and more compelling. There's no sex or cursing, something that made one reviewer comment that it read like mid-century Sci Fi. And yes, in that way it's kind of bland for an adult, but after a while it doesn't matter, it's that good. Another reader commented that the author made sure to use 10 words whenever he could have used one or two, but in general I thought that while it was true, it reinforced the feeling of a sleepy little town just getting on with everyday life.I've been reading a lot of murder mysteries lately, and this was a wonderful palate cleanser. Now I'm off to read the sequel. I want to find out what happens to Annie and Ed next.

[oliviainnj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. Thought the writing style was fine, though I listened to the audio version so perhaps it's written for verbalization. I highly recommend that version.The story explores what happens when first contact is made in a small, New England town. Most books posit sturm and drang when this happens. Doucette takes us in a very different direction - and ends with a brilliant conclusion, subtle, and deftly handled. I can't wait to read more.

[joeld-2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book could have used much stronger (or any) editing at every stage. It reads like a NaNoWriMo project: word count is king. When the author has a choice to leave anything out of the story, or put it in, he always puts it in. If he can show it by way of character-driven dialogue or just tell us about it through narration, he always narrates it. If he can narrate it in 2 words or 200 words, he narrates it in 200 words. If he can add even more words to the narration by contradicting everything he’s just said, he’ll do that too.I’ll give you an example. It will be painful.The 2nd chapter (where the actual characters are first introduced) begins: “There were about 17 different ways to get to main street from Annie’s front door by bicycle. Annie had tried all of them, and like to brag about it in circumstances where such bragging was appropriate—which wasn’t all that often.” First of all what kid, even a smart or nerdy one, brags about the number of routes to main street?? Why would you remark on the fact that someone liked to brag about it but only under certain circumstances? What exactly are these circumstances where it’s “appropriate” to brag about how many routes there are into town from your house, as if anyone would care?It goes rapidly downhill from there. The next long, plodding sentence ends “…she never bothered to count them so the real number was likely closer to ten or eleven.” Okaaay but sure, she likes to brag that there are **seventeen**, an oddly specific number that implies she has counted them. But it doesn’t stop! The author then begins describing each of the routes in detail, throwing out street names and landmarks without any reference to anything the reader can have a grasp on. “Two of those ways were over bridges on the south side of main, that were impossible for her to use without having begun on the wrong side of the river.” What am I supposed to imagine here? That “two of those ways” weren’t actually ways at all?After all of this, the subject of the routes from Annie's house—or even the fact that she uses a bike—never comes up again. It’s completely irrelevant to the story. Also, all of the things you might reasonably infer about Annie from this introduction — that she’s a nerd, a liar, possibly autistic, that she obsesses over transportation — also turn out to be dead ends. The whole opening is just misleading filler, written almost on purpose to baffle your imagination.The rest of the book is just more of the same.“What character would you cut from The Spaceship Next Door?”Without a doubt, the narrator. The ponderous novel would become a highly entertaining half-hour listen.

[bkjake · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Astoundingly good read! I love stories like this...interesting premise, realistic characters, and a conclusion that leaves you going "whoa!"