They Came from Below (review)

Emily and Reese are looking for some cute guys to pass the time with during their summer on Cape Cod, and they're intrigued with two extraordinarily good-looking boys named Steve and Dave. The guys, who seem to know every language there is, claim to be students, but the real interest factor is how good they make people feel and how compulsively touchable they are. They eventually reveal to Emily that they are looking for her marine biologist father, hoping he might help them locate a strange sea organism that washed up on shore and was taken away from the beach for study; it turns out that the boys are connected to the organism and that they are members of a super-long-lived race that moves from planet to planet as each becomes unable to sustain life, and it looks as though it might be time for them to leave the Earth. Nelson couches his cautionary tale in a fast-action plot complete with chase scenes, narrow escapes, and mild romance. The message gets muddy, however, since Steve and Dave don't plan to save the world or even to warn it; they seem to want only to preserve their own species, and in the process they intervene on a local level, with small healings and the introduction of a new philosophy. Nonetheless, their gentleness and need make them appealing even to readers who can't feel their hypnotic touch, and the possibilities of their philosophy are worth consideration.