"Dear Pen Pal" is a humorous, epistolary 1949 science-fiction story by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt.

Plot summary

The one-sided dialogue takes the form of correspondence from Skander, an alien, to an unnamed human whose replies are not presented. In his initial letters, Skander spends some time describing himself and his home planet of Aurigae II, a world circling a star in the constellation Auriga whose intelligent lifeforms are chromium-based, highly radioactive, and very long-lived, thriving at a temperature of around 900 degrees Kelvin. Skander admits that he intercepted the human's pen pal program application, but explains that he is lonely and in need of conversation, as he is serving a lengthy prison sentence for conducting an illegal scientific experiment which is implied to have harmed many of his fellow Aurigans. Oddly anxious to see his pen pal, he sends the human several photographic plates that can be exposed by simply thinking a mental command at them.

In the penultimate letter, Skander reveals that the "photographic plates" (which have just been activated) are actually a form of consciousness-transfer device, and that he intends to switch bodies with the human, thereby evading his prison sentence. His plan is to skip from body to body for thirty years, resuming his own at the end of his sentence.

The last letter is from the unnamed human - now occupying Skander's body - to Skander, now in the human's body. The human had immediately realized that Skander had an ulterior motive and had taken the plates to Earth authorities, who discovered their true purpose. However, the human voluntarily chose to see the scheme through. He drily notes that Skander will by now have discovered that the human body he has taken over has been paralyzed since birth, and is subject to heart attacks, and closes with the hope that Skander enjoys what little time he has left.

Publication history

The story was originally published in The Arkham Sampler (1949); it has been republished in many collections and anthologies,^[2] such as Destination: Universe!, Far Boundaries and such, the most recent being The Arkham Sampler: A Facsimile Edition (2010).

As "Letter from the Stars," it was republished in the July 1950 issue of Out of This World Adventures and in the 1957 Ace Double The Earth in Peril / Who Speaks of Conquest?

The story has been translated into Italian ("Pianeta Aurigae", "Caro Corrispondente"), Dutch ("Beste Correspondentievriend"), French ("Correspondence"), and German ("Lieber Brieffreund").