My Teacher Is an Alien: Difference between revisions

* ''My Teacher Is An Alien''

* ''My Teacher Fried My Brains''

The series is about Peter Thompson, a nerdy boy, and his best friend Susan Simmons who find out that their new teacher, Mr. Smith, is actually an extra-terrestrial agent named Broxholm. They suspect an [[Alien Invasion]], and work to expose the infiltrator. In the second book in the series, Duncan Dougal, the class bully and a side character from the first novel, discovers that there is another alien posing as a teacher, and that he has been the subject of an alien experiment to expand his intellect.

 

 

The narrator changes character in each of the books, following Susan in the first as she attempts to find proof of Broxholm's supposedly "evil" plans (abduct 5 students and take them back for study, not realizing his true intent was to use them as proof that Earth can be redeemed), then Duncan in the second as he tries to prove one of his teachers in middle school is an alien, then finally Peter in the last two. The last two books were originally planned to be one longer book, which is why Peter is used as the narrator twice. The "switching narrator" technique is one Bruce Coville would later use in other books.

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* [[Alien Among Us]]

* [[Alien Lunch]]: The alien food replicators ''attempt'' to create an approximation of Earth cuisine. The "french fry/blueberry pancake" did not work out as well as planned.

* [[Alien Non-Interference Clause]]: In the last book the kids and the aliens are under specific instructions only to observe human behavior and not to interfere in any situation. Predictably, a [[Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right]] situation eventually presents itself.

* [[Cool Teacher]]: Betty Lou Karpou {{spoiler|a.k.a. Kreeblim.}}

* [[Crapsack World]]: The kids (and the readers) take a tour of it.

* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: It may come to this.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Played with. Even the most vehemently anti-human aliens acknowledge the worth and value of individual humans, but it's hinted that many of them apply very broad generalizations to populace as a whole.

* [[Flowers for Algernon Syndrome]]: Duncan's intelligence boosting "Brain Frying" is temporary, and he will eventually return to ordinary human intellgence. Mildly subverted in that he is now much wiser and knows his potential, so he might find some use for ordinary human intelligence, whereas before he acted like a dimwitted bully.

* [[Flying Saucer]]: Lampshaded with a reference that Peter really, really dislikes this term.

* [[Genre Shift]]: The first two books are suspense stories about a kid trying to prove a certain teacher is an alien, and stop (what appears to be) an imminent threat. The last two books are far more akin to ''[[Star Trek]]'' in tone and genre, and reveal that the previous "villains" were actually good.

* [[Gentle Giant]]: Broxholm possesses physical strength far beyond the kin of comparably sized humans, and packs a laser gun to boot, but he only ever directly harms someone once. In fact, he chooses to be unmasked and jeopardize his mission rather than put human lives at risk.

* [[Gray and Gray Morality]]: Are humans bastards or [[Rousseau Was Right|was Rousseau right?]] The books suggest that neither answer is a simple as it seems.

* [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]]: Subverted. Although Kreeblim may be green-skinned, female and humanoid, she is not at all attractive by human standards. But she says she's not considered ugly on her home planet.

* [[Hidden Depths]]: Duncan starts off as a [[Jerkass]] bully character but eventually grows into a more well-rounded character.

** In the end, the entire human race turns out to have Hidden Depths that many of the aliens did not give them credit for.

* [[I Know You Know I Know]]: Susan and Broxholm play this game in the first book. Broxholm implies that he knows Susan was in his house, which indicates that he knows that Susan knows that he is an alien.

* [[Kill All Humans]]: Some aliens suggest this as the only solution to humanity's violent nature. Hey, at least they feel bad about it.

* [[Knight Templar]]: The aliens who want to destroy Earth for the safety of the rest of the galaxy.

* [[Kryptonite Factor]]: Broxholm ''despises'' human music, which is so painful to his ears that it can incapacitate him.

* [[Latex Perfection]]: The alien teachers typically disguise themselves as humans with this kind of mask, plus gloves and such. Later, even the main human characters wear them. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] since they have alien technology---for example, its material can change skin tone automatically.

* [[Mentor Occupational Hazard]]: Hoo-Lan.

* [[Narrative Profanity Filter]]: Broxholm's reaction to television is "'I spit in deep disgust at your decision to play in your own garbage.' Only the last word wasn't 'garbage'."

* [[New Media Are Evil]]: Hoo-Lan feels that triggering the invention of television was like giving a loaded rifle to a child instead of a watergun. At the time, he was ''trying'' to slow down humanity's technological progress by [[Distracted By the Shiny|"Turning their brains into swiss cheese"]]. You know, by [[Fridge Logic|improving global communications]].

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: The kids' efforts to thwart Broxholm in the first book actually end up hurting their cause later.

* [[No Big Deal]]: Dozens of people see Broxholm unmasked and even more watch his ship escape, but the town's reaction seems to be just pretending en masse that it never happened. There're some hints that the government hushed things up, but it's never fleshed out.

* [[Noble Profession]]: Broxholm and Kreeblim describe teachers as the most important job in the world.

* [[Red Herring]]: Duncan figures out that one of the four new teachers at his school must be an alien spy. Predictably, the one he's most suspicious of turns out to be innocent.

* [[Red Right Hand]]: An almost ''literal'' example: Duncan triggers a fire alarm but a special system (designed to mark pranksters) spurts permanent purple paint on his hand, and he ends up with a bright purple hand.

 

{{reflist}}