review of
Judith Merril's The Tomorrow People
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 15, 2017

One of the 1st, if not the 1st SF anthologies I ever read was one edited by Judith Merril called 6th Annual Edition The Year's Best S-F (1961). I was probably a teenager when I read it & I'm sure the work was very fresh to me at the time. Looking at its Table of Contents now I only recognize about half the names & I find that interesting in itself because it might hint that the editor was widely read & not just pushing the canon. Whether I'd like the collection now is hard to say & I'm not likely to reread it given how many other things there are out there for me to read. I wanted to read SF written by women & since I didn't know of many women SF writers I kept Merril's name in mind as someone whose work I should look out for.

WELL, now, maybe 50 years after my reading the comp, I finally read a novel by Merril. In a way, I don't particularly like dividing creative producers into gender categories: WOMEN writers & MEN writers but I find this categorizing being somehow too much at the forefront to ignore sometimes. As such, even though Merril's characters of both sexes are reasonably & believably portrayed there're still touches that seem more likely to've been thought of by a woman writer (although I don't think that 'has to be' the case.).

The Tomorrow People was 1st printed in 1960. It already has people living on the moon & a returned expedition to Mars by 1976, a mere 16 years away. That was rather optimistic of the author. A safe bet would've had the action take place 100 years later, instead she imagines such a massive change happening w/in her lifetime (she didn't die until September 12, 1997). Did she imagine living in 1976 & comparing that time to the time imagined in her novel?

Merril writes from a man's perspective about his lover, a woman:

"Then it hit him again: the incredible fact of her presence, right there, in his house, in his bed . . . the look and shape of her, the curve of shoulder, the aliveness just below her skin, the way her cheek curved with her smile . . . smiling light in her eyes, and all for him . . . for him . . . even while the faint line of frowning . . . for him, too. . . lingered above. The cloudy feel and fragrance of her hair, and the strange blend of scents on her skin; soap, grass, sex, something else, something sweet and delicious and way-back in memory." - p 8

Do I think that's a realistic way for a heterosexual man to be thinking about his lover? Well, sure, it's possible, it's not like all men are homogeneous. I'd say he was in a loving, appreciative mood at the time.

Part of the novel revolves around the moon, I guess that makes the novel a satellite of the moon? (That's a joke.) There're capitalist & communist bases: "Dollars Dome" & "Red Dome".

"Across the broad pock-marked face of the Moon, like blue-tinged boils on chin, cheek, and forehead, three air-filled pressure domes gleamed in the hard rays of the naked sun.

"Largest and best-advertised of these was the joint military and astronomical observatory base of the United Nations World Peace Control and International Scientific Congress, nestled appropriately, or at least hopefully, inside a hilltop between the great dry "seas," Tranquilitatis and Serenitatis," - p 11

So, yeah, there's the usual competition between ideologies & military-tinged everything. One of the main characters is the only astronaut to've returned from Mars. It's a mystery about what happened to the other astronaut(s) that he can't solved because he has nothing in his memory to answer the questions.

"They told him that the information he withheld—from them as well as himself—would probably make a difference in years in sending out another ship.

"Okay," he said, with the same one-sided grin, "Do yourselves a favor. Don't find out."" - p 21

The front cover of the book says: "He came back from Mars with a secret too terrible to remember" & the back cover proclaims: "There was something in Mars that killed people". That tells more about the type of marketing deemed necessary for selling a bk than it does about the actual plot. What does it say about what the reading public wants? Death?! Thrills?! Terror?!

""I'll tell you what's out there: God, that's what. Mars is heaven, see—just like it said in the story—only different—and God lives there. So if you know some guy holy enough to meet up with the Hot Shot in person, send him on out. Otherwise, you better forget the whole thing."" - p 22

"it wasn't really his idea to start with. It was something Doug had said, in that bad month, the last month, before he went. . . ." - p 23

Not that you needed to know that. Johnny, the astronaut that returned, as opposed to Doug, the one who didn't, has a fantasy:

"That would be nice, he thought. Let it turn out poor old Doug was just a rabbit mesmerized by these snakey protozoan intelligences. Pretty soon they'd take the whole world over, too—except for The Hero, who'd dash in and save everyone just in time." - p 55

Hhmm.. snakey intelligences overflowing from God?

"As a matter of fact, the bugs had already, in one sense, overflowed the Dome itself. One farm-tank full had been "planted" in an open pavilion outside the walls, roofed against meteors, but incompletely enclosed: "The Shack" was the simplest way to conduct Moon-environment tests." - p 95

Well, maybe 'God's' love is spreading like an STD:

"But the scene here was not posed. Ot was for real. And it went on all the time, all the hell over this slaphappy Dome. And it was getting more pronounced. He noticed it more than he had at first, in spite of getting used to it. And he thought it had started to show up in the clinical picture too. Nothings conclusive yet, but—" - p 102

It's Johnny's lover, Lisa/Lee, who ends up stealing the show, & this is where this seems to become more of a 'woman's novel', much as it sortof irks me to say so. She's a famous dancer whose dancers are broadcast over some sort of 3D technical network, she's pregnant from Johnny, she's on the moon, Johnny isn't, & she decides to broadcast a dance taking advantage of the moon's small (Earth relative) gravity.

"Drums crashed—like the surf, like thunder, like an earthquake, like a bursting dam. With a final sweep of wing-width, Lisa leaped forward, beating and fluttering, beating with the arm-wings, a-flutter in a mist of multi-hued chiffon—leaped out and downward, turning and twisting with the slowest slant of the widespread wings.

"From the midstage high riser down to the floor, she floated like a dragonfly, drifted like a leaf." - p 120

Merril has a politician trying to advance his career by investigating the "Dollars Dome", 1st for a leak to the "Red Dome" of information about their Mars bug research but when that doesn't pan out, 2nd for being a "LUNA LAB LOVE NEST":

"In a press release issued after the conference, the nature of the alleged "impairment of efficiency and morale" was not specified, but another paragraph stated that "the findings of the investigators are such as to suggest a thoroughgoing congressional probe into the personnel of the Moon Dome and the moral attitudes and practices prevailing there."" - p 137

Merril is a fair-minded writer, she has 'good' men & 'bad' men, 'good' women & 'bad' women. Wd I point this out about a male writer? I don't recall ever having done so before so it annoys me to do so now &.. yet.. this passage caught my attn:

"A stiff-backed, powder-caked claw-fingered female, rushing on tight-toed stilt heels, miscalculated; a bony shoulder knifed his bicep; a sharp elbow rose reflexively, caught him in the chest.

""Whyncha look wareyagone?" she shrieked." - p 150

& then there's the psychoanalysis:

"When she was gone, he sat and studied that one out. He didn't get very far. It was easy to analyze—simple masochistic crap. And/or false superiority: Better to love and not have than to be needful and get? Feed that to the pigs—or the bugs. It wasn't for Kutler. Except it was. So?" - p 159

I seem to feel this is a 'woman's novel' partially because of the role the pregnant dancer plays, of the way that love factors heavily into it all - but surely men write novels with central pregnant women characters (have they?) & with the psychology of love as a central theme (have they?).

""Listen, Chris. I came for Lee. You can make it easy or make it tough. We used to be friends, so I tell you this once: I came for my girl. You and Mac can both go to whatever kind of Hell they keep for guys like you. And I'll foul you up as cheerfully as him if you get in my way. I came for my girl. The rest of your politicking fornicating foolishness doesn't concern me at all."" - p 179

This sortof becomes a sci-fi romance novel.. but in a 'good' way, if you can believe that. I mean it's not some muscly guy coming to the rescue of a starry-eyed damsel-in-distress & then ripping open her silk blouse for a little passionate climaxing (or whatever happens in those things) it's something alot more interesting.

"Without taking his eyes from her face, he reached up and undid the clasps on his, broke the gasket seal, and lifted the bowl off his head. He stepped forward, and she took one step at the same time, meeting him. For the first time in two months, they met each other's lips.

"He stripped off his gauntlets, and held her head in his hands, drinking in the touch and look and scent and feel of her. From the neck down, the limp pressure suits swathed them in formless fabric armor; but hands and heads were free to caress; a smile could be finger-traced as well as seen; a murmured word was close to a close ear." - p 189

As for the mystery of all this?: ""We came to the conclusion, tentative, that the pregnancy might be a factor," he finished. "It now seems this is justified."" (p 191)

I was planning to give this a 3 star rating. I liked it but I remember being somewhat bored halfway thru & not finishing it w/ much enthusiasm. Now, tho, as I've written this review, the bk seems well-thought out & to have many characteristics that make it somewhat unique. I liked it & can add Merril to the-list-of-people-I-wish-I'd-known-when-they-were-alive. After all, she didn't die until September 12, 1997, when I was 43 yrs old so we had plenty of crossover time. Too bad. Sheesh, she even lived in Toronto, for all I know she might've been at one of my many performances there. ( )

I haven't picked up a classic Sci-Fi story in a long time, and since I vaguely recognized the author of this one I decided to give it a shot.

The broad outline of the story is that it takes place in a world where the Soviets beat the USA to the moon, and then also to Mars. But the two cosmonauts sent to the red planet disappeared without a trace, so the Americans had a chance to send a team of their own. Their trip is going well, they even find some tiny bug-like creatures to bring back. Then one of them leaves the base in the middle of the night and goes straight into the wilderness, never to return. The remaining astronaut, Johnny Wendt, searches diligently but finds no trace of his compatriot. He completes his mission and heads back to earth, where months of interrogations and psychoanalysis fail to offer any explanation for what happened to his companion.

Johnny is uninterested in his status as a celebrity back on earth, and mostly wants to stay at his self-designed home, drink himself into a stupor, and repeatedly unsuccessfully propose to his professional-dancer girlfriend, Lisa. Being a reasonably well-adjusted person who is wary of marrying a celebrity train-wreck, Lisa does her best to push Johnny towards healing and growth, but she's not capable of solving Johnny's problems for him.

The middle bulk of this book (about 95%) involves Johnny struggling with emotional regulation, Johnny's former bosses dealing with congressional budget allocation woes, moon base bureaucracy and personnel issues, and a tedious love triangle involving Johnny, Lisa, and a therapist who almost got through to Johnny.

The final 5 pages of the book involve an exciting and very Sci-Fi development that neatly buttons up all of the characters' problems, their nation's larger problems, and some deep existential questions that have plagued humanity since the Stone Age. The big twist was foreshadowed as early as the third chapter of the book, but I certainly didn't see it coming. I thought at first that it was a Deus Ex Machina, but on further consideration the groundwork is there, it is just de-emphasized. ( )

Two US astronauts are sent to Mars, with one eye on investigating a missing Soviet spacecraft, but only one returns. This novel is about how mysterious forces impact the returning US astronaut, as well as others on the Moon base, psychologically. The dialogue is clunky and led me to re-reading several passages to keep hold of the plot. The plot in question switches between a love story, US vs Soviet rivalry, political shenanigans on Earth, and extrasensory perception (ESP) on the Moon. While the lack of focus is sometimes jarring, readers of classic and/or feminist science fiction may enjoy this one. ( )

Reviewed on SF Mistressworks, see https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/the-tomorrow-people-judith-merr... ( )