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1948: SPACE CADET by Robert A. Heinlein

We often judge old science fiction books by what writers got right about the future. It is equally valuable to understand what they got wrong. In an experiment, disproving a hypothesis is still informative. Robert A. Heinlein was famous in the 1940s for writing a series of science fiction stories he labeled Future History. Heinlein also wrote fourteen young adult novels from 1947 to 1963 that can also be considered another Future History.

I’ve read thousands of science fiction novels and short stories over the past sixty-plus years. I no longer enjoy reading science fiction in the same way I did when I was young. That was when I could forget that I was a reader and immerse myself in the story. Now, when I read science fiction, I’m constantly thinking: What is the writer trying to create, how are they doing it, and why? When I read old science fiction, I think about the year it was written and what the author used as grounds for speculation.

I believe that at one time, Robert A. Heinlein was as brilliant in his speculations as H. G. Wells in his heyday. Space Cadet was written during a particularly stressful time in Heinlein’s life. He had left his second wife, Leslyn, whom he had married in 1932. I do not have the space here to describe how remarkable Leslyn was as a woman in the 1930s. Leslyn had a master’s in philosophy, was politically liberal, and sexually adventurous. Robert and Leslyn had a remarkable fifteen-year relationship, with an enviable social life among highly creative people in Los Angeles. Robert had left Leslyn, waiting for the divorce to allow him to marry his third wife, Virginia (“Ginny”) Gerstenfeld. She became his muse and companion for the rest of his life. (See Robert A. Heinlein: Volume I: Learning Curve, 1907–1948 by William H. Patterson.)

Space Cadet follows four boys, Matt, Tex, Oscar, and Pierre, through a series of episodic adventures as they train in the Interplanetary Patrol. Heinlein was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and modeled Space Cadet on his training at Annapolis. The story begins on Earth, then moves to a military school in Earth’s orbit. (The boys take leave on a giant space habitat.) Next, the boys are assigned to a rocket searching for a lost exploration vessel in the asteroids. Finally, end up on a rescue mission on Venus. For the most part, the story is a page turner. Each episode combines personal conflicts and learning experiences. Heinlein promotes education, especially in math. Heinlein provides a certain amount of infodumps about space navigation, orbital mechanics, rocket science, space suits, weightlessness, space sickness, and other realistic details involved in exploring space that were usually ignored in science fiction before Heinlein.

The Heinlein juveniles took space exploration seriously, at least by what was known at the time. This was especially true in the early books of the series. However, each book went further away from Earth. Eventually, the series went well beyond anything scientific to explain the methods of transportation used in them. I’ve often felt that Heinlein was focused on the details of realistic space exploration during the late 1940s and early 1950s, but after Sputnik and NASA, Heinlein shifted to making his novels about politics and society. Those later novels might be set in space, but Heinlein no longer concerned himself with the details of rocket science.

Although Heinlein was experiencing the success of his first book being published in 1947, a string of sales to slick magazines, and Hollywood types contacting him about making a movie, he was living in poverty in a tiny trailer. He desperately needed money. Heinlein left California and everyone he knew to hide out in Fort Worth, Texas. He was living in sin with Ginny, his future third wife. They had to keep their relationship secret until the divorce went through with Leslyn. Heinlein felt guilty for abandoning Leslyn, but she had become an uncontrollable alcoholic. Heinlein had met Ginny in Philadelphia while working as a civilian for the war effort. Ginny was a biochemical engineer with math skills who worked well with Heinlein on planning the science in his science fiction. The two of them spent their days in Fort Worth working out the math for the orbital mechanics in Space Cadet. Heinlein’s future depended on this second book for Scribner’s, but he had a difficult time writing it. He claimed that Ginny offered many suggestions that he initially rejected but ultimately used to finish the novel.

In 1948, Heinlein didn’t know his 1947 novel, Rocket Ship Galileo, would be the basis for Destination Moon, the first major science fiction film of the 1950s, and Space Cadet would be connected to Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, a 1950 TV show that influenced later science fiction television. Heinlein had been the star of John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction in the 1940s. Nor did he have any inclination that his twelve young adult novels for Charles Scribner’s Sons would have such a major impact on readers in the 1950s. In 1947 and 1948, Heinlein was at a low point in his career. He had no idea how big a success his writing would become, or how Ginny would become the love of his life. They believed in a fantastic future of space travel, but they were so poor that they had to sell their belongings to survive.

Heinlein dominated science fiction in the 1950s, like H. G. Wells did in the 1890s. When I reread Heinlein, it’s to see how he changed the course of science fiction. When I was young, I felt Heinlein would one day be considered the Mark Twain of science fiction by the time I got old. That hasn’t happened.

Robert Heinlein’s reputation as a science fiction writer has dropped dramatically over my lifetime. When I was growing up, if two SF fans met, both assumed each other’s favorite author was Heinlein, and they’d argue over who was the next best science fiction writer. Today, many modern readers shun Heinlein, usually for what they believe are Heinlein’s personal views, or because they’ve read one of Heinlein’s later works, and assume all of his books are just as bad. Personally, I dislike all of Heinlein’s books published after The Past Through Tomorrow (1967). I have significant problems with anything he wrote after Starship Troopers (1959) and before he published The Past Through Tomorrow.

Science fiction becomes dated after a few decades, which is the main reason why Heinlein’s fiction is falling out of favor. Only three SF novels from the 19th century are commonly read today: Frankenstein, The Time Machine, and The War of the Worlds. Eventually, I believe fewer than a dozen science fiction novels from the 20th century will be widely read in the 22nd century.

Heinlein will continue to be read until his original fans all die. Then, readers yet to be born will decide if any of his books will be worth reading after that. I’m rereading Heinlein’s books, speculating if they will survive in the future. I started with Heinlein’s first published novel, Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), an essay I already need to revise.

Rereading his second Scribner’s novel, Space Cadet from 1948, it’s easy to dismiss it as a young adult novel for boys. But when you examine it in comparison to science fiction published up until 1948, and consider the philosophical issues it deals with, it’s a standout SF novel.

In judging Heinlein’s long-term prospects, I’ve decided to use H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and George R. Stewart as models, specifically for The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Earth Abides. Heinlein wanted Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to be the three books by which he would be remembered. Heinlein felt those novels were his most mature works, and which best expressed his views. They are the ones that are still found in bookstores. They are also the Heinlein novels modern readers often dislike.

Heinlein might be right, and those books will be his literary legacy. Heinlein has twenty-nine other books published in his lifetime to consider. I plan to reread nineteen of them as possible works that might be remembered instead. So far, I’ve reread three, and my memory of the others suggests that Heinlein does not have a novel equal to my five models. In terms of ambition and complexity, only Heinlein’s favorite three come close to the five models I’ve chosen in ambition. However, I’m not sure if Heinlein’s philosophical intent in those works will be well-regarded in the future.

I believe there’s another way Heinlein might be remembered. Heinlein will often be discussed in books about science fiction. Heinlein is a significant figure in the evolution of science fiction. For example, in a taxonomy tree showing the evolution of the genre, Starship Troopers will be the main branch for Military SF. Rocket Ship Galileo is situated on a major branch of fiction about the first trip to the Moon. And Space Cadet is a major contribution to exploring the solar system.

In the 21st century, Heinlein is often ignored. Many readers have the prejudice that Heinlein is an unlikable conservative; some even think he’s a fascist and misogynist. But Space Cadet expresses extremely liberal views.

If you read Space Cadet today, it will feel like a simple story for young people that’s quite dated. Readers need to understand events in 1948 to appreciate the novel. Heinlein imagines a need for a world government and an agency to control nuclear weapons. Russia didn’t have the atomic bomb until 1949, but Heinlein was worried about the day when multiple countries had weapons of mass destruction. Throughout the 1940s, Heinlein wrote stories that speculated about how we’d apply atomic energy in peacetime and control nuclear weapons to prevent wars. That’s a heavy topic for fiction found in elementary school libraries.

Heinlein was also concerned with the human race destroying itself. Heinlein believed only one international agency should control nuclear weapons. And if any country violated their policies, their ability to create a nuclear bomb would be targeted with nukes. In an early draft of Space Cadet, Heinlein had Matt, his young protagonist, nuking his hometown. Wisely, Heinlein decided that was too much for a young adult novel and reduced the idea to a bull session between cadets.

To emphasize the importance of this idea, he has the cadets discover evidence that the asteroids are the remains of a planet that blew itself up in an atomic war.

The Interplanetary Patrol is racially integrated. Heinlein makes a point that black males are cadets and officers. The U.S. military integrated in 1948. Heinlein takes this further by emphasizing that intelligent beings on Venus and Mars are equally human, even if they don’t look human. However, human females don’t have equal rights in this story. But Heinlein quickly liberates women in later books in this series. However, even in Space Cadet, the Venusians are a matriarchal society.

Ideas about a space based military from Space Cadet will show up again in Starship Troopers. The novel also has an orbital battle school that prefigures Ender’s Game. And the Interplanetary Patrol will influence several TV shows in the 1950s, which will eventually lead to Star Trek. Of course, Heinlein was inspired by E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series.

Throughout the novel, Heinlein tosses out ideas that will become part of reality. At the beginning of the story, Matt uses a pocket phone that depends on cell towers. He gets to orbit via a reusable rocket. They are stationed at a geosynchronous orbit. But Heinlein also missed on things, too. In 1948, Heinlein didn’t foresee the impact that computers, networks, and robots would have on our world.

Space Cadet is set in 2075. Heinlein assumes that by then, humanity will have traveled the solar system and settled colonies on the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Ganymede. Heinlein also thought we’d find intelligent life on Venus and Mars, and it once existed on the planet that blew up and became the asteroids. All of Heinlein’s young adult novels have overlapping futures with similar details. That’s why I say they represent another Future History.

Many science fiction writers before 1950, including Ray Bradbury, hoped we’d find Martians and Venusians. I call that kind of thinking pre-NASA science fiction. In the 1960s, when NASA’s probes discovered that those planets were lifeless, I was tremendously disappointed. I still love pre-NASA science fiction. But I have to wonder if younger generations have completely dismissed such stories because of what science has discovered? I must point out that they accept Star Trek and Star Wars. We know those popular series are just as unscientific as pre-NASA science fiction, but they haven’t been rejected. Why?

I doubt many readers will read Heinlein because of his historical value to the genre. Few readers today read E. E. “Doc” Smith, and his series were once beloved. At 73, I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t give up on Heinlein, too. However, rereading books by Heinlein and Philip K. Dick provides far more enjoyment than reading new science fiction. I both love that and regret it. It reminds me of all my old boomer friends who won’t listen to any music created after 1975. I don’t want to be stuck in pop culture nostalgia, but obviously, I am.

I once read science fiction to think about the future.

I now read science fiction to think about the past.

James Wallace Harris, 9/31/25

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“Flies” by Robert Silverberg

The first story in Dangerous Visions was by Lester del Rey, an old friend and mentor to Harlan Ellison. The second story is by Robert Silverberg, one of Ellison’s best friends from the 1950s. And the next story is by Frederik Pohl, another editor and mentor from the 1950s. I get the feeling Ellison said to all his friends, “Hey gang, let’s put on a show!” (in his best imitation of Micky Rooney from 1939). But “Flies” by Silverberg is one disturbing performance, making me think this anthology should have been called Disturbing Visions.

I thought it interesting in Ellison’s introduction, where he’s bragging what a great writer Silverberg is, and listing all Silverberg’s great works, that none of them were the famous science fiction stories we know today. Then I realized that in 1967, Silverberg had not yet become a famous science fiction writer, the one who wrote the stories we associate with him today. I don’t think anyone will ever list “Flies” as great Silverberg. However, Silverberg would take off in 1967 with his story “Hawksbill Station,” which was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula and was anthologized in two best-of-the-year annuals. In the following few years Silverberg would become a giant in the genre.

“Flies” is about an astronaut, Richard Henry Cassiday, who nearly dies in space, but aliens find and repair him. They are God-like beings, who make him physically perfect again. But before sending him back to Earth, they turn up the sensitivity of his brain and fix it so he can telepathically report back to them.

Cassiday returns to Earth and proceeds to track down his three ex-wives. With each, he cruelly hurts them. The story is quite vivid, describing what he does. The alien watchers make him come back to be fixed. On being returned to Earth again, he suffers and reports back on his suffering. We are told that Cassiday is “nailed to his cross.” Are we to wonder if Jesus came to Earth to experience God’s sins against humans? I don’t know.

Cassiday even explains himself by quoting Shakespeare, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” Is Silverberg explaining suffering with theology? Are these two references to religion making the story deeper, or just bullshitting us?

All I know, while reading this unpleasant story, all I felt was horror. Why would Silverberg write such a disgusting tale? Often the stories in Dangerous Visions seem like they were written to top all other stories in grossness. Here’s what Silverberg wrote for his afterward, suggesting the story is about vampirism.

I’ve recently been reading dozens of science fiction stories published before 1930. And one of the most common themes is horror. Before space opera ramped up in the late 1920s, I would say horror was the number one theme of science fiction stories. And if you think about it, horror is still a common theme. A thrilling alien invasion film like Independence Day is full of horrible things happening to people — but the peak thrill of the film is when we do horrible things to the aliens. Isn’t science fiction often being Romans at the Colosseum?

Kurt Vonnegut had advice to budding writers, “Do mean things to your protagonist.” We love characters who overcome adversity. But do we love characters who create adversity? I’m reminded of “Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester. In that story, James Vandaleur and his android servant kill people, even children, in horrendous ways. That’s one of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories. But it didn’t disgust me. Why?

One of the reasons why I’m reading all those old pre-1930 science fiction stories is because it shows that science fiction stories were inspired by previous science fiction stories, and if they are successful, inspire later science fiction stories.

Here’s my problem with Dangerous Visions. I can find antecedents for its stories, but I’m having trouble finding stories that DV inspired in the years since. For all its success, Dangerous Visions is a kind of dead end, at least so far in my reading. Is that because science fiction as a genre decided to head off in another direction after Dangerous Visions? Probably not, probably I just can’t recall stories that follow the trajectories of DV stories. Maybe DV taught me to avoid them.

But so far, Dangerous Visions feels like a combination of the 1969 rock festival at Altamont and Charles Manson. Those were two years into the future. Maybe DV was being prophetic.

I thought I’d add this review of Dangerous Visions.

James Wallace Harris, 5/11/24

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“Small World” by William F. Nolan

Group Read 72: The Best Science Fiction Stories of 1957

“Small World” by William F. Nolan #15 of 20 (Read, Listen)

I’ve always loved post-apocalyptic novels about the last man on Earth, or at least, the last few people on Earth. I’m not saying I want everyone else to die, but if flying saucers hauled y’all all away, I wouldn’t complain. Ever since I was a kid, the thought of being the only kid in a deserted city was a fun fantasy for fueling daydreaming. The idea that I could roam around and survive by plundering anything I needed from abandoned stores and houses was deliciously appealing. I bet Henry Bemis implanted this idea in me via the 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone, when I was eight.

William F. Nolan imagines a man named Lewis Stillman left alone in Los Angeles after aliens invade in the August 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. I remember when I first read this story I was genuinely surprised by the ending. If you don’t want me to spoil it, follow your chosen link above before reading any more of this essay.

In 1967 Harlan Ellison edited Dangerous Visions because he claimed science fiction writers couldn’t get certain kinds of science fiction stories published. I call bullshit on that idea. I think his hypothesis was wrong. Nolan produces a nice little gritty dangerous vision in “Small World” in 1957. Of course, he had to write a few thousand words of character development and setting to entertain us before he could pop the surprise.

Stillman hides out in the storm drains of Los Angeles avoiding the invaders. He only comes out at night, and has collected a nice arsenal of weapons, but he survives by going unnoticed. There have been several movies that used those famous storm drains, so I imagined scenes from Them as I read the story.

One night Stillman fondly recalls a three-volume set of medical textbooks that belonged to his father. Stillman had gone to medical school in southern California but had dropped out to become a laborer and work with his hands. Sitting alone in his hideaway, he remembered seeing those books at a used bookstore and decided he wanted to see them again. That night he arms himself and heads out. He finds the books, but they find him.

He was attacked not by aliens, but by children. The aliens had killed everyone over the age of six, so they cities were swarming with feral children. Picture Lord of the Flies. And the children would kill any surviving adult they could find. All along, Nolan had us believing Stillman was hiding from little green men, but he was really hiding from hordes of rugrats.

In the end Stillman starts shooting the tykes to get away. I pictured him blowing away Jerry Mathers, and little Billy Mumy and Angela Cartwright, as well as Jay North. Of course, I would have been the right age too in 1957 if I had lived in LA. Eventually, the children overwhelm Stillman and I assume he was torn apart. But he must have killed a pile of youngsters before they got him.

I wonder why Nolan wrote this story. It’s sick if you think about it, especially since I read it the first time after Sandy Hook. Was he just trying to gross us out? Or did Nolan secretly hate kids? Lord of the Flies came out in 1954, and that could have inspired him. The 1950s was full of public fear regarding juvenile delinquents, so maybe the story was symbolic. And the age group also applied to the early Baby Boomers, so maybe Nolan was trying to be prophetic.

Yes, Ellison was wrong. Science fiction writers often got dangerous visions published. Two of my favorites were “Lot” by Ward Moore, and “The Last Day” by Richard Matheson, both from 1954.

Also from 1954 was “The Good Life” by Jerome Bixby. Maybe it inspired “Small World.” I’ve always found that story too creepy, maybe Nolan was providing us psychological release for that story.

James Wallace Harris, 4/13/24

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“The Fly” by George Langelaan

Group Read 72: The Best Science Fiction Stories of 1957

“The Fly” by George Langelaan #09 of 20 (Read, Listen)

“The Fly” by George Langelaan is far more famous as a horror movie than as a science fiction story, but it’s a novelette about a mishap with a matter transmitter, obviously putting it into the territory of science fiction. Judith Merril did include it in her collection of the best SF of 1957, but it’s mostly remembered in horror story anthologies.

I rewatched the original 1958 version of The Fly about a year ago, so it was reasonably fresh in my mind. While reading “The Fly” today I was surprised how well the film stuck to Langelaan’s original story. The film grossed reviewers out back in 1958, but since then it’s become somewhat of a classic. Back in the day, me and my school friends talked quite a lot about the movie version. I’m surprised the original story doesn’t get more recognition.

“The Fly” explores two common science fictional ideas, the matter transmitter, and the mad scientist. I thought the story was well told, but it seemed a bit archaic in its storytelling style. That might be because it’s a translation from the French. I often feel translated stories sound like they are from 19th century Europe. But then, that might be due to most of the translated stories I’ve read were from 19th century Europe. “The Fly” also feels a bit like Edgar Allan Poe to me too. Then again, it might reflect a storytelling style favored by non-English speaking writers. I don’t know since I use no other language but English.

I’m not going to repeat the plot of the story because it’s so famous, and if you haven’t read it, I don’t want to spoil it. Even the concept of a matter transmitter comes up late in the tale. Like many 19th century stories, “The Fly” takes a roundabout way to get to the point. It’s told after the action has happened. I have a theory about that. I believe old timey writers liked to tell stories with an “as heard by” structure. We used to believe that eyewitnesses were the gold standard of implying validity. Francois, tells the story about Helene, his sister-in-law, confessing she murdered his brother. The tale takes a winding path before it gets to the science fictional element.

Matter transmitters were made famous by Star Trek and its transporter. That show has dealt with transmitter mishaps too. But my all-time favorite matter transmitter story is Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys. It works out several fascinating aspects to the concept. Some of those aspects were later made famous in “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly. But there is one other story I’d like to mention, that’s a variation of the matter transmitter idea. In “The Four Sided Triangle” by William F. Temple, which uses a matter transmitter as a matter duplicator — an unintended side-effect to avoid in some matter transmitter stories. “The Four Sided Triangle” is a neat little love story that was made into a decent film.

André Delambre in “The Fly” is also a splendid example of a mad scientist in a science fiction. Like many Sci-Fi mad scientists, he works alone and invents something that should require all the resources of creating fusion power. Mad scientists and lone inventors now belong in the realm of fantasy, but there’s something heartwarming about mad scientists to folks who used to wear propeller beanies. I believe that appeal is why we had Doc Brown in Back to the Future. (The mad scientist is a popular idea in children’s stories still.)

In 2019, “The Fly” was reprinted in Promethean Horrors: Classic Tales of Mad Science. I thought that an apt title for anthologizing this story. Unfortunately, the table of contents was disappointing. I was expecting a big anthology full of mad scientist stories. That’s a shame because I would have bought a large retrospective anthology that highlighted the evolution of the mad scientist in science fiction.

I kept thinking about the classics of mad scientist stories and went looking for anthologies that might collect them. I found two.

I went ahead and took a chance on The Mad Scientist Megapack since it was only ninety-nine cents. The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination edited by John Joseph Adams is more money, $11.99 for the Kindle edition. However, there’s an audiobook version, and I might get that. I was disappointed that neither volume collected “The Fly.” If ever there was a mad scientist in science fiction, André Delambre is one. There is one story I know well in the table of contents to The Mad Scientist Megapack, “The Man Who Evolved” by Edmond Hamilton. I hope all the others I haven’t read are in that vein.

James Wallace Harris, 3/30/24

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“The Queer Ones” by Leigh Brackett

Group Read 72: The Best Science Fiction Stories of 1957

“The Queer Ones” by Leigh Brackett #02 of 20 (Read)

Ever wonder why science fiction imprinted on you as a child? Why does the genre appeal so strongly to some people? What’s its subconscious attraction?

Psychoanalyzing 1950s science fiction reveals a deep-rooted desire to contact aliens. UFOs became a mania in that decade, which spilled over into the 1960s. UFO crazies seemed to have disappeared after that. But they’re back today. I do believe that humanity suffers from cosmic loneliness. Or is it something else?

“The Queer Ones” by Leigh Brackett speaks to both xenophobia and loneliness. I’m not going to give spoilers right away, but I recommend you follow the link above and read the story. It offers bit of a mystery, so I don’t want to spoil your reading fun, but I want to have my say eventually. However, “The Queer Ones” fits the mold so well for this kind of 1950s science fiction story, that it might not be much of a mystery for aficionados.

My first reaction to reading “The Queer Ones” was to feel it was a mirror image of Zenna Henderson’s People stories. But instead of finding gentle aliens out in the backwaters of rural American, we encounter thugs from the stars. I’m reminded of Heinlein’s Have Space Suit-Will Travel. Henderson’s aliens are a version of the Mother Thing, while Brackett’s aliens act like Wormface, but they look human. They even coop human lowlifes.

Leigh Brackett takes on the tone of Clifford Simak in “The Queer Ones,” and it’s hugely different from her planetary romances. She can’t seem to resist herself though because romance does sneak in towards the end.

Hank Temple is the owner/editor of a small town, six-page newspaper. Doc Callender contacts Hank about a curious child, Billy Tate. X-rays and bloodwork show this kid to be strangely different. If fact, the doctor had been called in because Bily had been beaten up by other kids for being different. He looked human, but Billy was slight, redheaded, and a tiny bit odd.

As it turns out, Sally Tate is a young country girl who got put in the family way by a fast-talking stranger. Her child, Billy, grew up to become a kid that Sally’s hill country clan intensely disliked. The Doc calls Hank to see if he wants to drive out into the middle of nowhere to meet this backwoods family. That’s when the mystery starts. Hank and Doc’s first theory was Billy was a mutant.

Mutants are another popular theme of 1950s science fiction. The cause of mutant humans in SF is varied, but two reasons were popular. Radiation from atomic bombs, and the emergence of Homo Superior was the other. This also paralleled our fascination with aliens. Either they were monsters, or advanced beings with godlike powers. Both show up in “The Queer Ones.”

However, the beginning flavor of “The Queer Ones” is much different than the flavor at the end the story. Early on, Brackett taps into the kind of atmosphere we find in Way Station by Clifford Simak. I’d call that theme: Aliens Living Hidden Among Us. Other books like that are A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn, The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, and as I’ve already mentioned, Pilgrimage: The Book of the People by Zenna Henderson. Superman comics did this too. Henderson essentially steals Superman’s origin story for her People stories. And if you remember, quite a few episodes of The Twilight Zone featured beings from beyond living amongst us.

The plot takes a sinister turn when Doc is killed. Hank realizes their snooping has gotten back to Billy’s father. Then the hospital is burned down with Doc’s evidence. That’s when Hank catches his first alien, a young woman, Vadi, who turns out to be the sister to Billy’s father. That’s when Hank realizes that Billy’s father is not another mutant, but an alien.

Hank is turned on by Vadi. Sally Tate, and all the women of her family had been turned on by Billy’s father, who we eventually learned is an alien called Arnek. Now this is an interesting sub-theme of cosmic loneliness. Leigh Brackett doesn’t go into this, but how can Arnek mate with Sally Tate and produce a child? This has come up in later science fiction stories. A theory to answer that question is panspermia. That theory helps to explain why many of the aliens in Star Trek look human, but it also suggests that God or advanced aliens seeded/populated/colonized the galaxy on purpose. Maybe we weren’t meant to be alone and miss our cousins.

This also suggests that our psychological fear of cosmic aloneness can sometimes overcome our ingrained xenophobia. We want the universe, or at least the galaxy, to be inhabited by beings like us. Even reading stories about aliens gone bad fulfill the need to know were not alone.

Let’s backtrack a minute. Did our hangup of being alone in the universe emerge with UFOs in the late 1940s? I don’t think so. Doesn’t the desire for aliens and angels fulfill the same existential craving? And don’t we have stories of humans and angels falling in love with each other, even having sex. The Bishop’s Wife comes to mind, but then there’s Wings of Desire and City of Angels. Ancient literature is full of aliens if you squint at supernatural beings from a certain angle. Isn’t God a kind of top boss alien? The Bible and other ancient religious work often describe whole species of aliens as part of taxonomy of beings not of this Earth. Sure, the Greek gods weren’t light years away, but they were from on high.

Science fiction doesn’t have that many themes. It tends to explore the same ones over and over, and if you look at them in the right way, those themes have always been around, even before science and science fiction. Just imagine how deep they go when you think about Neanderthals encountering Homo sapiens? We hate the other, but we loath the idea of being by ourselves in reality.

Stories like “The Queer Ones” appealed to me as a kid, and I don’t think I’m alone. Shouldn’t we ask why? For all our eight billion, most of us are lonely. Even if we have plenty of family and friends to keep us company, don’t we feel that something is still missing? Don’t we have a longing for something greater? And isn’t the reason so many people believe in God is because they want a personal relationship with a higher being? Wouldn’t you want a personal relationship with an alien?

In the end, Sally runs off to the stars with Arnek, leaving Billy behind. Hank takes Billy to raise him but wishes he had a wife to help. Hank doubts he will ever marry because after kissing Vadi once, he longs for her too much to settle for a human companion. That’s very strange, don’t you think? Is Brackett suggesting that we’re missing a higher spiritual connection because aliens are our true soul mates?

I doubt we’ll ever meet aliens on Earth, or visit them on other worlds, but we might not stay alone for much longer. Artificial intelligence is progressing so fast that we might have new digital friends soon. R. Daneel Olivaw might arrive before we return to the Moon. Science fiction always promised us robots too. I wonder if we’ll encounter any in the next eighteen stories from 1957.

——

“The Queer Ones” first appeared in the March 1957 issue of Venture Science Fiction. Dave Hook became so entranced by its cover that he researched and wrote “Who is Artist ‘Dick Shelton’.” It’s another fascinating stroll down memory lane if you love old SF magazines and their artists who do their covers and interior illustrations.

James Wallace Harris, 3/13/24

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Has Science Fiction Changed?

I often encounter the opinion that science fiction has changed. Is it true? Over my lifetime novels have gotten longer, trilogies and series have become more common, there are more female authors, and the genre has been heavily influenced by fantasy. Before Star Trek in 1966, the world of science fiction seemed tiny, and that TV show brought in millions of new SF fans. Then Star Wars in 1977 brought in tens of millions of new SF fans. (But I’m not sure how much the population of science fiction readers grew.)

But these are all externals. I’m wondering if the essence of science fiction itself has changed. Yes, the writing has gotten better, and the literary world has become more accepting, but do modern readers get something different out of reading science fiction than what I found in the 1960s? Why do I prefer older science fiction? Is it more than just because I imprinted on it when I was young? I’m not the only one who feels this way. Many aging Baby Boomers say they prefer older science fiction too, but so do some young book reviewers.

Over the last forty days I’ve read five novels by Philip K. Dick written between 1959-1963, plus Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. These aren’t new novels, but newer than what I’m talking about, and they feel different. Over the last year I’ve read such new SFF books as Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill, Babel by R. F. Kuang, and The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. I know this is a small sample, but I’ve also read hundreds of science fiction short stories, both old and new, over the last couple of years.

All I can say is science fiction from the first half of my life (1951-1987) feels much different than the second half (1988-2024). The change started around the time of Star Wars in 1977. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg might be the main factors changing the genre. I confess that I’ve long thought that science fiction ran out of original ideas at some point, and the genre has been living on recycling ever since. But women writers, literary standards, and fantasy radically changed the flavor of science fiction since the 1970s too.

But what if the change in science fiction is due to other factors? Yesterday I watched a video by Bookborn, “Do SFF authors think we are stupid now” that offered two innovative ideas. Bookborn suggests that current science fiction lacks subtlety. She also suggests that newer science fiction requires less critical thinking because newer authors tell their readers what to think rather than letting the readers draw their own conclusions. Bookborn also felt authors wrote about topical problems too obviously. Even with books she likes, presenting viewpoints she agrees with, she felt they were too explicit, lacking subtly. She admits this problem is not measurable and highly subjective.

Bookborn then cites an essay, “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes. The essay in long, so I suggest reading Wikipedia’s summary instead, but to give you a quick idea, here’s a quote from the first paragraph at Wikipedia:

"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intentions and biography of an author to definitively explain the "ultimate meaning" of a text. Instead, the essay emphasizes the primacy of each individual reader's interpretation of the work over any "definitive" meaning intended by the author, a process in which subtle or unnoticed characteristics may be drawn out for new insight.

Bookborn is quite articulate at explaining her position, and her position is more complex than what I’m conveying here, so I recommend clicking on the link above to watch her video. Bookborn goes on to say that current authors hide from their readers because of social media. They fear attacks on what they say so they are overly careful about what they put forth. I had an additional insight. Because modern science fiction is often about elaborate world building, modern authors struggle to be precise so readers will see clearly what they have worked so hard to invent.

In Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, I was disappointed by the blandness of the author’s voice. And I never felt the presence of Griffith or Banks in their stories. Yes, in both cases their world building is beautifully detailed, but both authors left no mysteries about their stories or their personal views for me to ponder. I have theories to explain this too.

Modern writers prefer a close personal third point of view, or first person, to the older omniscient point of view which is better suited for conveying the author’s voice. I also find that the novels I admire most are ones written by authors I love reading about. Maybe what I love about older science fiction is my connection to the author.

Any science fictional world that’s set far from Earth becomes a fantasy world, and thus far less complex than our reality. Such fictional worlds are far from the infinite complexity of contemporary controversies. Writers can avoid personal philosophy by using allegory. Reading such fantasies means passively consuming what the book describes. Such stories don’t lend themselves to ambiguity and complexity, which makes the reader think. Our reality is infinitely full of shades of gray. Made up fictional worlds tend to be consistently designed because authors want them to be understandable to readers unless you’re Gene Wolfe writing The Book of the New Sun.

The five Philip K. Dick novels were far more compelling and thought provoking than the books by Griffith and Banks. I often try newer science fiction, but they usually come across as merely fun stories. Overall, newer science fiction stories are like going to Disneyland. They dazzle but when the ride is over, are quickly forgotten. I’m still thinking about those Philip K. Dick novels. When nothing else thrills, switching to a Philip K. Dick story will get my mind excited. Why is that? I believe it’s because his Dick’s books are closer to real life, and that makes them ambiguous and mysterious. They offer endless room for speculation. I’m reading another biography of Philip K. Dick, my sixth, I think, because Dick’s novels make me crave understanding.

Dick’s novels were compelling, Ammonite and The Player of Games were not. They aren’t bad, in fact, they’re exceptionally good stories, just not compelling. Dick was obsessed with deciphering reality. He doubted that what we perceive is real. He was horrified by other people, often thinking they were machines, disguised supernatural beings, or illusions of the mind. Paranoia fueled his narratives. Our reality was too complex for Philip K. Dick, and it drove him into insane states of mind trying to figure it out. Every Philip K. Dick novel is another exciting speculative assumption about reality.

Interestingly, Dick doesn’t fit the theory about the author being dead. Yes, his stories are wonderful without knowing anything about Philip K. Dick, but their complexity increases the more you do know about him. I want stories where the authors aren’t dead by Barthes criteria.

By coincidence, both The Player of Games and Time Out of Joint are about game playing. However, the first novel feels contrived. It’s hard to believe. But the second, which is far more fantastic, yet feels very real and believable. Why is that?

I believe the reason I love older science fiction is because it speculates about reality. Whereas newer science fiction is focused on telling a delightful story. Lucas and Spielberg overly inspired newer writers to focus on entertaining the masses.

I loved the Heinlein novels of the 1950s because they speculated about future space travel. That was before NASA showed us what real space travel would be like in the 1960s. Heinlein’s stories honestly tried to speculate about traveling to the Moon or Mars. Space travel in Star Trek, Star Wars, or the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks are really fantasies. Space travel in Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is somewhat speculative.
Most science fiction isn’t very speculative, even the old stuff. However, novels like Flowers for Algernon or Earth Abides feel far closer to reality. And I’m sure many people will point out that stories by Philip K. Dick are extremely fantastic, yet their characters feel like ordinary real people, and that grounds them.

For all his insanity, Philip K. Dick struggled to understand reality. And I think the reason I admire many older science fiction writers is because they were commenting on reality. I do love entertaining stories, but pure storytelling seldom offers much to think about.

I’m not sure I understand “The Death of the Author” in the same way as Bookborn. It seems to me that classics were written by authors whose personality dominated their fiction. Think about Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eudora Welty, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Conner, Jack Kerouac, or the science Fiction writers like H. G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Zenna Henderson, Samuel R. Delany, John Brunner, etc. If you want to write a great science fiction novel, I think it must connect with reality. Just think how silly and fantastic Slaughterhouse-Five is, yet Vonnegut points to reality, and that makes it a great novel.

James Wallace Harris, 2/4/24

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Leave the World Behind

I love post-apocalyptic science fiction, especially those stories that follow the collapse of civilization as it happens. My favorite SF novel of this type is Earth Abides by George R. Stewart from 1949 and the television show Survivors from the BBC in 1975. I’ve written about some of my favorite post-apocalyptic short stories here. I’ve also written about the theme many times because it’s one of my favorite science fictional themes in case you want to check out my fanatical interest.

So, when I watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix last night, I got overly excited because it’s a new and interesting take on this old theme. Every generation has their own philosophical thoughts about the possible collapse of civilization. What made Leave the World Behind even more relevant was I had just watched this YouTube video (watch below). I highly recommend you take the time to watch it too — it will add to your paranoid theories about what’s happening in Leave the World Behind.

Joe Scott explains how there’s a philosophical movement that believes we should hurry the collapse of civilization so we can get busy rebuilding everything. I think that’s insane. The philosophy is called accelerationism, and I don’t know if the producers of Leave the World Behind were using accelerationism as a cause or not, but it’s worth thinking about.

Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) wakes up and decides her New York City family should rent a house out on the island for the weekend. She doesn’t even ask her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) but just wakes him up while she’s packing. They get their two kids (Rose and Archie) and drive to the rental house on Long Island. After they settle in, they head to the beach where they experience their first weird event. An oil tanker runs aground right in front of their beach umbrella. It’s quite an impressive special effect. The Sandford family just think it’s an odd, but startling accident.

That night, G. H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myhal’la) knocked on their door claiming to be the owners of the house. They ask if they can stay there that night too because the power has gone off in New York City. The house still has power, but it’s lost cable and the internet, so things are starting to feel weird.

The rest of the movie is about how these six people get along not knowing what’s happening. As the weekend progresses increasingly weird and strange things happen, but because they have no real news, the two families can only speculate. Clay tries to drive into a local town to find out what’s going on but gets lost without a GPS. Amanda, a businesswoman freely admits she hates people, has all kinds of paranoid theories. G. H. knows some extraordinarily rich people connected to the military and offers other theories. Poor Rose only wants to see the last episode of Friends after binge-watching ten years of the series and having just one episode to go. The Scotts are African Americans, and Ruth doesn’t trust the white Sandfords, especially the mother, Amanda.

There are some spectacular special effects scenes with deer and Tesla cars that made me think of other theories about what’s happening. The gathering of deer reminds me of Hitchcock’s The Birds.

One of the obvious points the movie makes is how terribly dependent we are on our smart phones. But if you pay closer attention, it’s interesting to know how different Leave the World Behind is from earlier stories like it. There is little survivalism in this film. Of course, this is just the first weekend of the apocalypse. I’d love to see a sequel about what the six experiences over the next coming months. Amanda assumes that everything will get back to normal soon, but we know that’s insane. Rose Sandford has the most positive approach. She decides she isn’t going to wait for things to get normal again, but goes off on her own to find a copy of Friends to watch.

There are a lot of preppers and survivalists in our society, but the six presented here don’t think that way. I assume the storytellers are saying most of us are going to be damn helpless. None of the six even say, “At least we have plenty of deer to eat.”

I really got into Leave the World Behind, but Susan, my wife, thought it was a big waste of two hours on Christmas Eve. I thought it justified the price of Netflix this month. The film is based on a book by Rumaan Alam. I haven’t read it, but now I’m tempted.

James Wallace Harris, 12/25/23

Posted on by jameswharris

“Legwork” by Eric Frank Russell

“Legwork” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #10 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “Legwork” was a finalist for the 1956 Hugo Award for novelette, but it was not collected into any of the best of the year anthologies even though I think it’s a four-star-plus story. It did get an honorable mention by Judith Merril.

“Legwork” was rarely anthologized, but Mike Ashley reprinted in Future Crimes in 2021 as part of his British Library Science Fiction Classics series. Here’s Ashley’s introduction for “Legwork.” It makes me want to read more Eric Frank Russell, but then I say that every time I review one of his stories. I need to do what I say.

Eric Frank Russell (1905–1978) was one of Britain’s leading sf writers in the 1950s, alongside Arthur C. Clarke and John Wyndham, but his reputation has faded since he more-or-less stopped writing in 1965. He honed his craft on reading American pulps in the 1930s and could muster a passable American idiom. He enjoyed pulp crime fiction. When he finalized his first novel, Sinister Barrier, which involves the investigation by a special government agent into a series of unusual and unexplained deaths, Russell modelled it on the American pulp G-Men. It clearly worked. John W. Campbell, Jr., bought it for the first issue of Unknown, and the novel, about aliens controlling humans, became instantly popular. Russell enjoyed creating strange mysteries investigated by the police in such early stories as “Shadow-Man” (1938) where the police try and find an invisible criminal, or “Seat of Oblivion” (1941) with the police trying to find a criminal who can possess other people. One of his last books, With a Strange Device (1964), issued in America as The Mindwarpers, was an expansion of a novella which first appeared in a detective pulp in 1956 and many critics argued it was not science fiction at all, but a Cold War thriller about the manipulation of scientists’ minds. I have no doubt Russell would have made a good crime-fiction writer had he put his mind to it. The following story, written and set in 1955, pits human ingenuity against alien ability.

Future Crimes: Mysteries and Detection Through Time and Space. British Library Publishing. Kindle Edition.

“Legwork” introduces us to Harasha Vanash, an invader from Andromeda, who can control minds for a radius of one mile. This allows him to pass as anything his victims can imagine. For all intents and purposes, Vanash is a shapeshifter. “Legwork” begins with Vanash landing his spaceship out in the middle of nowhere, sending the spaceship back up into a parking orbit, hiding the ship’s remote controller in a hollow stump, and heading out to invade Earth alone. Vanash has invaded fifty worlds and is quite confident he will quickly take over our planet. Vanash makes himself seen as a human to the people who see him, hitches a ride to a nearby city, gets a room in a boarding house, and starts studying our ways. Here’s how Russell’s prose sounds:

Once settled and observing that money is essential to our way of life, Vanash sets out to get a steady supply. The story then cuts to Edward G. Rider, a genuine human who works at the United States Treasury. Rider is a big guy, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds. He’s recently married and is quite annoyed by his boss assigning him to an out-of-town job investigating a rather strange bank robbery.

Wikipedia has a fascinating article about the long history of shapeshifting in myth and fiction. It’s a theme that comes up in science fiction often. In myth and fantasy, magic causes shapeshifting, but in science fiction, the writer must come up with a good explanation for it.

“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr. is a famous 1938 science fiction shapeshifting story that might have inspired Russell. I especially wonder that after reading Ashley’s introduction. Campbell asks us to believe in “Who Goes There?” that an alien organism can restructure its body instantly, and the mystery is how to detect such an organism. In “Legwork” the shapeshifting is all illusion, and the humans don’t even know there is a shapeshifter. A good portion of the story is working out how mysterious bank robberies are taking place and coming up with a theory about a shapeshifting crook.

Eric Frank Russell’s “Legwork” could have been a great 1950s film noir movie because it’s about gritty routine detective work. Orson Welles was about the right size in 1956 to play Eddie Rider if you think about his 1958 film Touch of Evil. Russell does an excellent job of producing a police procedural in “Legwork.” In fact, it’s exactly the kind of police procedurals people saw in black and white movies of the 1950s. Imagine seeing The Asphalt Jungle, Odds Against Tomorrow and The Thing from Another World mixed into a slick film noir. I would love to see it. That’s how I imagined “Legwork” when I read it.

And thinking about shapeshifting science fiction and 1950s black and white films, I’m also reminded of Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956. It was a metaphorical take on shapeshifting, designed to make us think about communism. “Legwork” isn’t metaphorical, it’s straight-ahead science fictional alien invasion story. What’s weird is our short story reading group just read “Counterfeit” by Alan E. Nourse, another shapeshifting themed story, but not as good as “Legwork” because Nourse’s prose showed bad pulp fiction writing habits while Russell’s did a slick writing job with “Legwork.”

Russell has a light touch in this story, it’s not humorous like his two most famous SF stories, “Allamagoosa” and “… And Then There Were None,” but “Legwork” has just enough subtle sarcasm and faintly absurd situations that we know that Russell is making fun of Vanash’s overconfidence in conquering us humans. Russell also throws in some nice touches along the way. A teen who is an amateur astronomer with a home built 8″ reflector telescope discovers Vanash’s spaceship in orbit. Me and my buddies tried to grind an 8″ inch telescope mirror and failed when I was a teenager. There are two places where dogs start yelping and run off. That lets us know dogs that see what Vanash really looks like and it must be pretty damn scary.

“Exploration Team” by Murray Leinster won the novelette Hugo in 1956. I thought it a pretty good story, but until now in our group read 67, I thought “Brightside Crossing” by Alan E. Nourse should have gotten that Hugo. Now I’m thinking “Legwork” deserved the trophy. I wonder how many times I will change my mind when we read the next twelve stories?

My friend Mike also liked “Legwork” and sent me these comments:

“Legwork” is an interesting humans vs. aliens story, a well-worn science fiction trope that is skillfully manipulated by Eric Frank Russell.


Russell immediately introduces us to Harasha Vanash, an Andromedan thought-form whose “…natural power had been tested on fifty hostile worlds and found invincible.” Vanash is a menace to Earth when “…he’d discovered an especially juicy plum, a world deserving of eventual confiscation by the Andromedon horde.”


Russell’s genius is that he sets the stage for the impending confrontation by contrasting the Andromedon and human problem solving abilities.


The Andromedons depend upon “…flashes of inspiration that come spontaneously, of their own accord. They cannot be created to order no matter how great the need.”


Humans depend on hard work: “Variously it was called making the grade, slogging along, doing it the hard way, or just plain lousy legwork. Whoever heard of such a thing?”


As the story progresses, the humans work tirelessly to solve the problem of the mysterious bank robberies perpetrated by Vanash. Eddie Rider, a special investigator with the feel of a Sydney Greenstreet character, leads the investigation with aplomb.


The humans ultimately triumph and the alien is vanquished. Mankind is preserved. An entertaining and worthwhile story.

James Wallace Harris, 12/18/23

Posted on by jameswharris · 6 Comments

“Silent Brother” by Algis Budrys

“Silent Brother” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1956. It was by Algis Budrys writing as Paul Janvier. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #4 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read.

Harvey Cable has a fascinating mystery to solve in “Silent Brother.” The spaceship Endeavor has returned from the first interstellar mission. Harvey might have been on that mission but was badly injured in a test flight of an earlier spaceship. He lives alone. Harvey must use a wheelchair or braces on his legs and a cane in both hands to get around the house. After watching the crew of the Endeavor return home on TV, he goes to bed hoping his old astronaut companions will come to see him soon. The next day he wakes up to find that someone has stolen the picture tube from his television.

After carefully searching his house, Harvey finds the picture tube on his basement worktable. He can prove that no one broke into the house. He even tests the picture tube for fingerprints and only finds his own. But Harvey is incapable of carrying a large TV picture tube downstairs because with leg braces, he must firmly hold onto the handrails. If no one broke into his house, who took the picture tube downstairs while he slept?

Harvey goes to bed the next night after rigging his house so he can’t sleepwalk out of his bedroom. Yet, once again he wakes up refreshed and discovers more work has been done on the picture tube in the basement. None of his traps to keep him in his bedroom have been disturbed.

“Silent Partner” is a fun story that sets up a good lock-room mystery. It has a satisfying solution, but I don’t want to tell you about it just yet. I encourage you to go to the link above and read the story. It won’t take long. “Silent Brother” was reprinted in both Merril’s and Asimov & Greenberg’s best of the year anthologies, but it’s not been reprinted in any major anthology since. My friend Mike who is reading these stories along with me emailed me quite a positive review. I’ll post it below after I get into the spoilers. I also liked the story, but does two guys liking a story sixty years later mean it was one of the best of 1956, or a forgotten classic science fiction story?

I’ve been thinking about the levels of good stories. There are good stories, and then there are good stories. A great story is a good story that launches into orbit for the reader. Not everyone who reads a group of stories will love every story, and different readers will pick different stories they think are the good ones. Here’s a hierarchy:

  • One of the good stories in a magazine
  • One of the good stories in a best-of-the-year anthology
  • One of the good stories that are finalists for an award
  • One of the good stories in a general anthology
  • One of the good stories that are in theme anthology
  • One of the good stories that are in a retrospective anthology
  • One of the good stories in a list of the all-time best stories.

“Silent Brother” was in the same 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction with the first part of Double Star, one of Heinlein’s best novels, and it won the Hugo award. The issue also contained “Clerical Error” by Mark Clifton which I reviewed last time. Our short story club generally didn’t like “Clerical Error” but Astounding readers back in 1956 picked it as their second favorite after the Heinlein serial in The Analytical Laboratory poll. “Silent Brother” came in third. I like both “Clerical Error” and “Silent Brother,” but I wouldn’t reprint either if I was an anthologist. I thought “Clerical Error” was more ambitious but poorly written, and I thought “Silent Brother” nicely written, and very enjoyable, but far from great. I can easily say it’s a good story, but what does that mean?

If you look at the table of contents for Merril’s best-of-1956 anthology, none of the stories stand out to me except “Stranger Station” by Damon Knight. That story has shown up three times already in our short story reading group because it’s often reprinted. I haven’t read most of Merril’s selection, and “Silent Brother” might be among the good ones. But “Silent Brother” is not in the same league as “Stranger Station.”

Looking at the table of contents from Asimov and Greenberg’s best-of-1956 anthology, we see five stories that stand out: “The Country of the Kind” by Damon Knight, “Exploration Team” by Murray Leinster, “The Man Who Came Early” by Poul Anderson, “The Last Question’ by Isaac Asimov, and “Stranger Station” by Damon Knight. These are all stories our group has encountered several times in the many anthologies we’ve already read. I have read The Great SF Stories 18 (1956), and “Silent Brother” falls toward the back of the pack. (It is interesting that Asimov and Greenberg with thirty-two years of hindsight were able to create such a solid lineup of 1956 SF stories.)

“Silent Brother” wasn’t a finalist for the Hugo award, and it’s never been anthologized for a major theme or retrospective anthology. Nor is it on any fan poll for being an all-time great SF story. Now, do you sense the relative nature of good? What I want to find are the most memorable, most powerful of the SF stories from 1956 that most people consider good. I liked “Silent Brother” a fair amount, but I wouldn’t anthologize it if I was creating an anthology of the best SF short stories of 1956. I might include it in a theme anthology if it worked well with the other stories.

Still, it was a pretty good story. And I think it would be interesting to analyze why? For me, the mystery about who was rebuilding the television made the story a page turner. However, it was the conclusion that elevated the story with a particular kind of happy ending. The crew of the Endeavor brought back invisible aliens who they had developed a highly beneficial symbiotic relationship. The silent brother was a new alien being that lived inside of you. Now, if you had just read Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters you might not think this was so wonderful, but Algis Budrys pulled it off. Why?

I think the idea of having a silent brother that heals and helps you if awful lot like what religion promises, like believing that Jesus will save us, or becoming one with God who will watch over all his followers. “Silent Brother” represents a story of transcendence. It reminds me of the ending to Childhood’s End. Harvey Cable was lonely and suffering from a damaged body. He, and the Endeavor crew welcomed the alien into their bodies and passed them on. But isn’t this the same story as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers? But that story was a metaphor for communism. Budrys presents the alien as a brother. Is it little brother to big brother? Harvey’s personality isn’t changed or possessed; he just has a very helpful invisible friend living inside of him.

Algis Budrys was a savvy guy. I’m guessing he consciously knew about the religion connection in his story, and he knows that most people would love to have a personal god to help them. Instead of inventing a theological being, Budrys creates an alien that serves the same function.

Here’s what Mike had to say:

I think "Silent Brother" is an excellent story.

The genius of the story is what Budrys leaves out. He gives us bits and pieces, and our imagination fills in the blanks.

For example, Harvey Cable has obviously been seriously injured in the past. We don't know for sure what happened to him, but we imagine some kind of space flight misfortune left him damaged. Was it radiation? Was it an equipment failure, or a spaceship catastrophe? Budrys gives us room to speculate.

Budrys relates that Cable's struggle is both physical and mental. He "...trembled on the brink of admitting to himself that his real trouble was the feeling that he'd lost all contact with the world." He is in trouble and "The idea was to hang on to reality."

It's slowly revealed that Cable is disassembling his TV set and reworking it into something else. Budrys writes beautifully descriptive sentences: "How did one shot-up bag of rag-doll bones and twitchless nerves named Harvey Cable accomplish all this in his sleep?" and "What in the name of holy horned hell am I building?"

Once the TV rebuild is complete, Budrys never reveals its exact purpose, but it's obviously of great importance because afterwards "...he felt his silent brother smile within him." Again, we get to fill in the blanks on our own.

A parasitic alien has entered Cable, and healed him. "Who wants symbiosis until he's felt it?"

Budrys explains "...we were born in a solar system with one habitable planet, and we developed the star drive. And on Alpha's planet, a race hung on, waiting for someone to come along and give it hands and bodies

Cable's final act is to send part of his silent brother to each of the three men who have come to interview him. The parasitic alien is passed on.

No long info dumps. No discursions. A concise, heartfelt, beautifully written story.

I think Mike admired the story far more than I did. I thought the rebuilt TV with its flashing lights helped Harvey connect with his new brother and helped him to retrain him to reprogram his damaged body. It’s like when Dr. Cal Meacham builds an “interocitor” in the film “This Island Earth” — the gadget allowed him to connect with aliens.

Mike and I have talked about “Silent Brother,” discussing how stories affect readers differently. Critics often write about fiction as if there were objective standards, but that’s not possible. Fiction is like a day, for some people the day might be wonderful, and for others horrible, and for many just another day.

I’m looking forward to seeing how many members in the Facebook group like or dislike “Silent Brother.”

James Wallace Harris, 12/4/23

Posted on by jameswharris · 5 Comments

“The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick

“The Minority Report” was first published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, January 1956. You can read it on Archive.org or listen to it on YouTube. (Or even listen and read at the same time.) It is story #2 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. Wikipedia has a rather informative entry for “The Minority Report” that I highly recommend reading.

“The Minority Report” did not meet any of the criteria I used for selecting the best SF short stories of 1956, but I included it because it’s a famous Philip K. Dick story, and because it inspired a movie and television miniseries. It’s interesting that neither Judith Merril, T. E. Dikty, nor the team of Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg picked the story for their best of the year anthologies. Obviously, they were not precogs to the story’s big success in the future, but ultimately, I think they made the right choice.

The premise of “The Minority Report” is built on the idea that the future can be predicted, and murders can be prevented by arresting murderers before they kill. The plot arises when the head of Precrime, John A. Anderton, sees his own name on a computer card stating that he will kill Leopold Kaplan. Anderton immediately figures it’s a frame-up by Ed Witwer to take over his job.

The story is weird because the future is predicted by three mentally and physically damaged people kept in a kind of permanent dream state. They are called precogs. Because the future is always in flux, each precog is monitored by a computer. To convict a person of a precrime requires two of the three computers analyzing the dreams of their precogs predicting the same future, and that’s called the majority report. A single computer produces a minority report.

Most of the story involves Anderton going on the run hoping to prove himself innocent and maintain the validity of precrime as a principle of law enforcement. The story is quite dramatic. I can see why they chose to produce it as a movie. “The Minority Report” is full of action and ideas. Along the way, the story produces quite a bit of PKD weirdness, paranoia, offbeat philosophical questions, and a disloyal wife. Unfortunately, there are so many plot twists that the story breaks down in confusion.

Information about the sale and publication of “The Minority Report” can be found at philipdick.com. It was reprinted in Dick’s 1957 collection The Variable Man and Other Stories, but it was never anthologized in a major anthology. According to the way stories are remembered in the science fiction publishing world, “The Minority Report” was never a respected story. Fantastic Universe was not a top tier publication. This was PKD’s 91st story, and 85th short story. (See philipdick.com for numbering his worksl) Dick cranked them out, and it shows. “The Minority Report” could have been a much better story if Dick had thought about the plot carefully and rewritten it several times. But he had to eat and sold it for little money. Philipdick.com suggests it earned only a little more than $12.95, but don’t say exactly.

Here is the review my friend Mike emailed me.

I think "The Minority Report" is one of Dick's weaker efforts. 


I've never been a fan of hocus-pocus stories, and the idea of Precrime has so much hand-waving magic about it that Penn and Teller would be proud. We never get a plausible explanation why or how precogs manage to predict the future. Good science fiction gets you to believe the unbelievable, but Precrime feels like a story gimmick.


I've also never been a fan of mysteries, because the author typically drops critical details into the narrative at the last minute. We're supposed to marvel at the perspicacity of the protagonist, but I just feel manipulated. Dick drops this important bit of information on us:


"Jerry's vision was misphased. Because of the erratic nature of precognition, he was examining a time-area slightly different from that of his companions."


We discover that precognition, which is the foundation of Precrime, has an "erratic nature" and precogs can examine different time-areas. Doesn't that collapse the entire Precrime house of cards?


You know a story is flawed when the author has to stop and explain for pages why Anderton's name was generated by the Precrime system. PKD finally throws in the towel when he has Anderton announce "Each report was different...Each was unique. But two of them agreed on one point. If left free, I would kill Kaplan. That created the illusion of a majority report. Actually, that's all it was--an illusion."


The whole story feels like an illusion, a magic trick. The characters are subservient to an arcane plot, stock performers in a magic show.

I agree with Mike. I dislike thrillers and mysteries where the author jerks us around contriving plot twists by whatever whim hits them at the moment. They never feel believable or real. Like I said in my previous review. I want to believe what I’m reading, and I have too much distaste for precognition.

Now, if PKD had come up with another system for identifying potential murderers I might have bought the idea of precrime. I don’t think this is possible, but if they had a brain implant that measured various kinds of emotional states and they could identify one that people experience before committing a murder, then that would have been acceptable to me. Dick’s precogs are mutants with ESP. I have problems with psi stories in SF. Too often they feel like comic book plots.

There are a few psychic power stories in science fiction that succeed with some readers. There’s telepathy in The Demolished Man and teleportation in The Stars My Destination, two much admired novels by Alfred Bester. But they are not my favorites. PKD played with ESP in some of his stories, and I’m a big fan of his work, and I can sometimes buy such weirdness as part of his stories because Dick was so weird himself. I’m afraid the precog stuff in “The Minority Report” didn’t work for me this time.

Alfred Bester came up through comics, and I’ve always felt he felt superior to both comics and science fiction. As much as I admire Bester’s writing ability, I’ve always thought he was sneering at science fiction. Writing stories about psionics was his way of saying SF fans would believe anything. But I think Dick was different. He was into thinking about the supernatural and any possible explanation for reality. He played with weirdness.

I need to think about the use of ESP in SF. Let’s see if any more of the 1956 stories deal with psychic powers. I’m not sure it’s a legitimate theme for science fiction.

James Wallace Harris, 11/29/23