Themes
The basic theme of the novel is that contact between human and alien intelligences could well be very limited if both parties are genuinely different in psychology and physical form. Humans spend the novel largely puzzled by the Visitors' nature and motivations, and the Visitors seem to lack any real understanding of humans. Neither side ever makes any meaningful communication with the other, and the only real outcome of the contact is considerable frustration and the potential of large-scale damage to Earth's economic systems. The idea of aliens' disrupting human economies also features in the author's earlier novels "Ring Around the Sun" (1953), "They Walked Like Men" (1962), and "All Flesh Is Grass" (1965).
Read more about this topic: The Visitors (novel)
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