What I am talking about is an alien invasion of Earth in the mold of War of the Worlds or Independence Day only the story is told from the perspective of the alien invaders. I’m especially interested in the sort where the aliens have a sympathetic story – that they have a good, or at least a relatable reason, to be doing what they are doing. I’m not talking about stories like Avatar, where humans are the alien invaders.
There’s one, but I can’t recall the title. Maybe 1960s. It involves tiny ladybug-sized aliens who land on Earth and are armed with highly painful laser like weapons. The aliens are scared of creatures like dogs. They end up killing a cat (a human investigates the cat’s death by inserting a thin wire into one hole in the cat’s head and it comes out another hole, showing a clean laser-beam-like penetration path), and causing pain to two humans. The story ends in undignified fashion when one of the stung humans just pulls out a can of insecticide and sprays the aliens dead. Most of the story is written from one of the alien’s journal standpoint, keeping a diary about the scary and big things found on this strange planet.
The last words of the story are the human who sprayed the aliens remarking, “Nasty little bastards. I wonder what they were?”
It’s a bit tricky, depending on your definition of “alien invasion of Earth”.
I recently mentioned The World’s End (movie) in a different thread. I think it would qualify, but since it’s a comedy (in part or in whole) I’m not sure it’s about the sympathetic angle, it’s about humanity’s tremendous flaws (in a funny way).
Another is the series of novels The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster. Simplifying, one group of aliens comes to Earth to recruit help in an ongoing war, and later another group comes to Earth to stop them. The first group has various points of view, and are largely (but not entirely) sympathetic. The second group isn’t sympathetic, and their methods are atrocious, but their greater goal isn’t absolutely unreasonable. And when one of them gets a deep, good look at what humanity is… well, I also agree and sympathize. For the record, only the first book qualifies for the OP. The second two are following onto the results of the human interactions with the conflict.
Some early parts of the Martian Chronicles were told from the point of view of the Martians being invaded by earthlings. Not sure if that fits as the OP stated invasion of earth.
A great deal of Pournelle and Niven’s Footfall is told from the perspective of the invading aliens.
Oh, SMH, although entirely different types of “invasions” there’s always the grand old man of such things: Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhoods End”
Or the more complicated (good and bad) Galactic Milieu novels by Julian May.
I was going to mention that one, along with another Asimov, about an unsuccessful alien invasion:
This is the one that came to mind for me (even though it’s not one of my favourites).
Christopher Anvil wrote a number of novels and stories like that. Pandora’s Planet is a novel whose protagonist is the alien commander in which aliens conquer Earth, but have increasing difficulty holding it because it turns out humans are more intelligent than they are. The short story The Gentle Earth is also from the viewpoint of the alien commander, and in it the alien invaders are largely defeated by Earth’s climate (to be fair, humans did about as badly on their world).
The Apocalypse Troll by David Weber contained large portions from the viewpoint of the “Troll” of the title, an alien-created psychotic cyborg with the goal of conquering humanity and using it to destroy his creators.
I don’t recall the title, but Jame White wrote a short story from their viewpoint about aliens invading Earth and kidnapping nearly the entire population, even nuking cities after the population was taken so nobody would move back in. In the ending twist the commander watches as the fleet leaves the Solar system…just as the Sun explodes. And he contemplates how successful the mission was compared to trying to talk to the locals when you don’t have the sci-fi standard magic universal translator and almost no time before everything dies.
In The Game of Blood and Dust by Roger Zelazny a pair of godlike aliens play a time travel based game with Earth, taking turns making a small change in history. If Blood wins, the result is a thriving human civilization; if Dust wins, the result is a world destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.
“Best two out of three? This time I’ll be Blood, and you can be Dust.”
Wow!! I immediately thought of this nearly 40-year old short story (that I first read in Analog magazine back in high school) upon reading the thread title, and find that not only was I beaten to the punch, but it was the first reply. Nice job! Great minds think alike and all that. 
Anyway, I second that it is a great story. It’s one of my favorites as well.
Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar, tho the perspective regularly flips from the alien lizards to the humans.
Twilight Zone season 2, episode 15 – “The Invaders.” In this story an old woman is attacked in her home by little invaders, and it’s told from her point of view. And the reveal at the end is that the little invaders are the humans!
Jack Chalker’s Web of the Chozen gives you an alien invasion story told from the point of view of the aliens (who are really very biologically altered humans)
I see from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database that it has only been republished once since its initial paperback run in 1978-1987. That was by Orion in 2012. Orion, it seems, would reprint practically anything.
I’m sorry that I can’t remember the name of this short story but I think it fits the bill. Aliens arrive on earth to find virtualy no animal life left. They explore abandoned cities in an effort to determine what happened to the inhabitants and find only skeletons. The invaders want to take over the planet but not until they find out what happened. They have tech that lets them revive the dead but are hesitant to use it on the human remains. They recieve quite the surprise when they finally do bring one person back. Probably written in the 1950’s from the style I remember.
Was it this one?
That’s the one! I haven’t read it in decades but I should have remembered it was Van Vogt. Thanks!
Going back to the 1960’s, Sleeping Planet by William R. Burkett Jr., talks about an alien invasion of Earth (by putting the entire population to sleep) from several viewpoints, one of which is the alien commander, who explains their reasons for doing so during the novel. Mild spoiler, there are a few humans that are not put to sleep and things therefore happen.