Victor by Bruce McAllister (F&SF, July 1977) opens with worm-like aliens landing on Earth; these initially appear to be indestructible, as when they absorb sufficient material or energy they grow and replicate. However, the professor who is the father of the narrator’s girlfriend comes up with a solution—a whistle that, when it is blown and the sound transmitted through loudspeakers, summons huge flocks of birds to eat the worms. The narrator and his girlfriend figure this out after the Professor falls into a coma, and the pair go on to save the world.
These events would, in most SF stories, be the complete arc of the piece—but in this one we are just half way through, and the rest of it telescopes through time and illustrates an anti-climactic domestic aftermath. First, the media attention on the couple fades; then the Professor gets old and dies; later, the narrator and his girlfriend have problems with their teenage kids and eventually separate, etc.
This is an interesting idea but it isn’t a particularly engrossing one.
** (Average). 2,800 words.