The Wanderer

By Fritz Leiber

Rating: **

When I first started reading sci fi from the fifties and sixties, a recurring problem I saw was that the ideas the authors came up with were really interesting and exciting to read about, but the actual writing was bad. In some cases, the ideas were good enough and the writing decent enough that I could really enjoy myself. With other writers (I'm looking at you, Heinlein), I just couldn't do it. A lot of times I would get done reading something (or stop reading partway), and sigh to myself thinking that it was a really good idea, poorly executed.

Which sums up a lot of science fiction. A textbook example of this phenomena is 1965's The Wanderer. The idea is, an earth-sized planet shows up literally out of nowhere, and parks itself next to the moon. It doesn't come crashing down to Earth. It doesn't blow up the planet. There's no fleet of invading aliens. It just kind of sits there. Rotating. Most of the action of the book results from the the earthquakes, tidal waves, and resulting fires, floods, storms, and general chaos the planet's gravity creates.

This is an idea I've never seen before, or heard of before. Mostly because it's a ridiculous idea; but it's science fiction, and sometimes ridiculous things happen. And that's a large part of why I love science fiction.

The problem, as I said before, is in the execution. The author wants to show the effect that this would have to people all over the world, in every setting imaginable. The middle of the ocean, a plane in mid-air, along the coastline of an incredibly flat penensula, along a coast that already has regular earthquakes, the top of a sky scraper, in a subway station, and probably several more that I'm forgetting. Which makes sense, really; it's a catastrophe that's going to affect ever part of Earth. It's an ambitious task, but the author really isn't up to the task of juggling that many characters. I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters, largely because most of them were more caricatures than characters. There's the "weed brothers" in New York City, who's defining characteristic is that they smoke weed. There's the black servants in Florida who are more concerned with what people will think of their treatment of their white employer, than with their own safety. There's a would-be actress who tries to find a way to turn this catastrophe into an opportunity to get into film. There's a meteorologist who's too old and set in his ways to believe the reports of extraordinary weather and tides caused by the new planet. And on, and on, and the book describes all of these characters with roughly the same level of attention, care, and depth that I just gave them.

Characterization aside, there's more to the book that I could criticize. It's just cheesy at places; there's a green cat/human hybrid alien who calls herself Tigerishka, speaks broken English, and has sex with a daring male adventurer, even though Fritz Leiber (as far as I can tell) never had anything to do with Star Trek. The character motivation is baffling at times, which is odd since staying alive during natural disasters is so obvious and straightforward. The author, for the most part, ignores this. He decides that his main group of characters will spend the entirety of the novel trying to go talk to a scientist. Presumably so that the scientist can science the planet away. Or something. When they finally get to the scientist, does it resolve anything? Of course not. What is one scientist going to do about a giant planet hogging the sky? What could he possibly do in this situation? Why did this group not ask themselves these questions?

It's just not good writing. If I didn't set the unexpectedly-masochistic goal of reading all the Hugo winners, I would've dropped the book at Tigerishka.