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The Infinite Man
The God Within
IT lived in Milton Bradford
IT could make planets Vanish, Alter mathematical constants, erase the laws of chance.
IT had the power to change the entire universe...
Or Destroy it utterly
IT lived in Milton Bradford
IT could make planets Vanish, Alter mathematical constants, erase the laws of chance.
IT had the power to change the entire universe...
Or Destroy it utterly
202 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
1 person is currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Daniel F. Galouye
118 books78 followersDaniel Francis Galouye (11 February 1920 – 7 September 1976) was an American science fiction writer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he contributed novelettes and short stories to various digest-size science fiction magazines, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Louis G. Daniels.
After Galouye (pronounced Gah-lou-ey) graduated from Louisiana State University (B.A.), he worked as a reporter for several newspapers. During World War II, he served in the US Navy as an instructor and test pilot, receiving injuries that led to later health problems. On December 26, 1945, he married Carmel Barbara Jordan. From the 1940s until his retirement in 1967, he was on the staff of The States Item. He lived in New Orleans but also had a summer home across Lake Pontchartrain at St. Tammany Parish in Covington, Louisiana.
In 1952, he sold his first novelette, Rebirth, to Imagination and then branched out to other digests, including Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Between 1961 and 1973, Galoyue wrote five novels, notably Simulacron Three, basis of the movie The Thirteenth Floor and the 1973 German TV miniseries, Welt am Draht (directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder). His first novel, Dark Universe (1961) was nominated for a Hugo.
In 2007, Galouye was named as the recipient of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which is co-sponsored by the heirs of Paul M.A. Linebarger (who wrote as Cordwainer Smith) and Readercon. The jury for this award recognizes a deceased genre writer whose work should be "rediscovered" by the readers of today, and that newly rediscovered writer is a deceased guest of honor at the following year's Readercon. Galouye was named 6 July 2007 by Barry N. Malzberg and Gordon Van Gelder, speaking on behalf of themselves and the other two judges, Martin H. Greenberg and Mike Resnick.
After Galouye (pronounced Gah-lou-ey) graduated from Louisiana State University (B.A.), he worked as a reporter for several newspapers. During World War II, he served in the US Navy as an instructor and test pilot, receiving injuries that led to later health problems. On December 26, 1945, he married Carmel Barbara Jordan. From the 1940s until his retirement in 1967, he was on the staff of The States Item. He lived in New Orleans but also had a summer home across Lake Pontchartrain at St. Tammany Parish in Covington, Louisiana.
In 1952, he sold his first novelette, Rebirth, to Imagination and then branched out to other digests, including Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Between 1961 and 1973, Galoyue wrote five novels, notably Simulacron Three, basis of the movie The Thirteenth Floor and the 1973 German TV miniseries, Welt am Draht (directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder). His first novel, Dark Universe (1961) was nominated for a Hugo.
In 2007, Galouye was named as the recipient of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which is co-sponsored by the heirs of Paul M.A. Linebarger (who wrote as Cordwainer Smith) and Readercon. The jury for this award recognizes a deceased genre writer whose work should be "rediscovered" by the readers of today, and that newly rediscovered writer is a deceased guest of honor at the following year's Readercon. Galouye was named 6 July 2007 by Barry N. Malzberg and Gordon Van Gelder, speaking on behalf of themselves and the other two judges, Martin H. Greenberg and Mike Resnick.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 3, 2013
I was listening to a lecture given by Prof. Richard Dawkins, and during the Q & A session someone asked him about his favourite science-fiction novels. One of the authors he mentioned, of whom I'd never heard, was Daniel F. Galouye. He mentioned specifically Galouye's novel
Dark Universe
. I have a lot of respect for Dawkins, so I did a search on Daniel Galouye and discovered that he's rather well-regarded, if a little obscure. In 2007, he won the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, an award given to "a deceased genre writer whose work should be 'rediscovered' by the readers of today." That was good enough for me, and I decided to seek him out.
Unable to find Galouye's Dark Universe or Simulacron 3 (check out Fassbinder's World on a Wire for the film adaptation), arguably his two most highly thought-of works, I settled for what I could find: The Infinite Man. Casually flipping through the book while standing in the bookstore, I noticed some odd concrete poetry-style sections as well as geometric representations that reminded me of something I'd find in an Alfred Bester work. And I really like Alfred Bester, so somehow I figured this book would be a surefire hit with me.
While the book did not put me off Galouye completely, it certainly didn't do anything to make me eager to seek out the rest of his work. If I come across Dark Universe or Simulacron 3, I'm sure I will pick them up and give him another chance, but The Infinite Man is not a good way for today's readers to rediscover Galouye.
The book begins when Project Genesis, a research group seeking to confirm the Steady State theory, discovers a spontaneous spike in neutrino creation in a localized are. That area, it turns out, is in the body of Milton Bradford, a drug-addled hippie. Fast-forward five years and A.J. Duncan, the former head of the now-defunct Project Genesis, has installed Bradford as the Chairman of P&D Enterprises. Bradford thinks that he inherited the company from a father he never knew, but
Meanwhile, another former member of Project Genesis has started his own cult, The Church of Topological Transformation. Its members see Bradford as their messiah, the Inverse Vessel, who contains the entire universe within him. As a consequence, they wear their clothes inside out and speak sdrawkcab, hcihw steg dlo tsaf.
There's also a psychiatrist who hypnotizes Bradford in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons, and a secretary who is torn between her duty and her love for Bradford. Naturally.
To begin with, this really is a novel of ideas; for the most part, the plot takes a back seat to psychedelic musings about the universe. Now, I have nothing against the novel of ideas, but the ideas presented in The Infinite Man are too new-agey for my taste. There are too many passages like the following:
It all becomes a bit much, and while the book is a mere 202 pages, it took me a while to muddle through it. There are far too many scenes involving members of The Church of Topological Whattzit going on and on about when they will finally meet the Primary One, and how Bradford, er, excuse me, Drofdarb is Saoshayant (Zoroaster's son), reborn and come to complete the cosmic karma and oh my I don't even want to revisit this.
The style in which it is written also doesn't help matters. The hippie-talk in the novel is even more cringe-worthy than the term "hippie-talk":
It's possible that this is all supposed to be very funny. In fact, if it had been written by someone like Philip K. Dick, I would assume that it is supposed to be funny. But in this case, it really feels like the writing is merely a product of its time (the book was published in 1973), and this dates it terribly.
The worst thing, however, was the total lack of any remotely interesting character. When you don't care about, or particularly like, any of the characters, it's difficult to get excited about the tacked-on love story, and it's nearly impossible to feel any kind of tension as to whether so-and-so lives or dies. The novel ends with quite a bang, yet it had no resonance for me because by the time the conclusion finally came I was just reading so I could say I'd finished it.
While The Infinite Man may not be a ringing endorsement of Daniel Galouye's talents, I am still interested in his other work. Part of this is because I refuse to believe that Richard Dawkins has such poor taste in SF. But mostly it's because I've read reviews by people who love Galouye's other works, but who disliked, were disappointed by, or who outright hated The Infinite Man. It was also Galouye's last novel, and it seems it was cobbled together from two stories that had been written much earlier, "Tonight the Sky Will Fall!" (1952) and "The Day the Sun Died" (1955). So for now I'm willing to make the tentative assumption that The Infinite Man is not an example of Prime-Galouye.
Unable to find Galouye's Dark Universe or Simulacron 3 (check out Fassbinder's World on a Wire for the film adaptation), arguably his two most highly thought-of works, I settled for what I could find: The Infinite Man. Casually flipping through the book while standing in the bookstore, I noticed some odd concrete poetry-style sections as well as geometric representations that reminded me of something I'd find in an Alfred Bester work. And I really like Alfred Bester, so somehow I figured this book would be a surefire hit with me.
While the book did not put me off Galouye completely, it certainly didn't do anything to make me eager to seek out the rest of his work. If I come across Dark Universe or Simulacron 3, I'm sure I will pick them up and give him another chance, but The Infinite Man is not a good way for today's readers to rediscover Galouye.
The book begins when Project Genesis, a research group seeking to confirm the Steady State theory, discovers a spontaneous spike in neutrino creation in a localized are. That area, it turns out, is in the body of Milton Bradford, a drug-addled hippie. Fast-forward five years and A.J. Duncan, the former head of the now-defunct Project Genesis, has installed Bradford as the Chairman of P&D Enterprises. Bradford thinks that he inherited the company from a father he never knew, but
Meanwhile, another former member of Project Genesis has started his own cult, The Church of Topological Transformation. Its members see Bradford as their messiah, the Inverse Vessel, who contains the entire universe within him. As a consequence, they wear their clothes inside out and speak sdrawkcab, hcihw steg dlo tsaf.
There's also a psychiatrist who hypnotizes Bradford in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons, and a secretary who is torn between her duty and her love for Bradford. Naturally.
To begin with, this really is a novel of ideas; for the most part, the plot takes a back seat to psychedelic musings about the universe. Now, I have nothing against the novel of ideas, but the ideas presented in The Infinite Man are too new-agey for my taste. There are too many passages like the following:
All nonexistence thundered and roared and gave birth to blinding scintillations. The coruscating motes flickered, faded, then managed to reclaim their purchase on materiality. But they were eventually bedimmed into obscurity by a great golden bar that welled up from the depths. Expanding in its precipitate rush forward, the shimmering rod achieved almost supercosmic proportions and swept over the Bradford-percipience. It glinted internally with suggestions of blue and green, brown and obsidian hues. (188-189)
It all becomes a bit much, and while the book is a mere 202 pages, it took me a while to muddle through it. There are far too many scenes involving members of The Church of Topological Whattzit going on and on about when they will finally meet the Primary One, and how Bradford, er, excuse me, Drofdarb is Saoshayant (Zoroaster's son), reborn and come to complete the cosmic karma and oh my I don't even want to revisit this.
The style in which it is written also doesn't help matters. The hippie-talk in the novel is even more cringe-worthy than the term "hippie-talk":
You've got to make him stop tripping. I'm certain that when he beds the right chick -- the only chick for him -- he'll no longer get strung out unexpectedly. (90)
It's possible that this is all supposed to be very funny. In fact, if it had been written by someone like Philip K. Dick, I would assume that it is supposed to be funny. But in this case, it really feels like the writing is merely a product of its time (the book was published in 1973), and this dates it terribly.
The worst thing, however, was the total lack of any remotely interesting character. When you don't care about, or particularly like, any of the characters, it's difficult to get excited about the tacked-on love story, and it's nearly impossible to feel any kind of tension as to whether so-and-so lives or dies. The novel ends with quite a bang, yet it had no resonance for me because by the time the conclusion finally came I was just reading so I could say I'd finished it.
While The Infinite Man may not be a ringing endorsement of Daniel Galouye's talents, I am still interested in his other work. Part of this is because I refuse to believe that Richard Dawkins has such poor taste in SF. But mostly it's because I've read reviews by people who love Galouye's other works, but who disliked, were disappointed by, or who outright hated The Infinite Man. It was also Galouye's last novel, and it seems it was cobbled together from two stories that had been written much earlier, "Tonight the Sky Will Fall!" (1952) and "The Day the Sun Died" (1955). So for now I'm willing to make the tentative assumption that The Infinite Man is not an example of Prime-Galouye.
December 17, 2020
An odd book by an otherwise minor but interesting author.
Galouye wrote some pretty good novels for the time, including Dark Universe, which was nominated for a Hugo and Simulacron-3, which was made into a German TV mini-series and later remade into a theatrical release movie in 1999 that was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film (it lost to The Matrix).
So it's not that The Infinite Man was written by a terrible author. But the novel really doesn't hold up well. As several people mention in their reviews, it's full of slang from the 1960s; drug slang as well as general cultural slang from the era. The weird thing is that the author doesn't use the slang words correctly. It might be that he's trying to show that language usage has changed between the 1960s and the far-flung future when the story takes place (1980). But it reads more like an author's attempt to use hip slang without understanding the usage.
The plot has been pretty well summed up by other reviews here: there's a god-like creative entity that has decided to inhabit Milton Bradford, a random hippy drug addict on Earth. It periodically surfaces and does something weird like change the value of pi or change the speed of light slightly. Scientists have figured out what's up and are spending a lot of effort to keep Milton's mind occupied so he won't accidentally destroy the Universe. Things don't go as planned, in part because it turns out there's another entity around, a destructive entity.
Visually, it might make a good end-of-the-world disaster movie but as a novel, the best I can say is that it's not boring. And there are a few good laughs from a religious cult that wears their clothes inside out and pronounces their names backwards. But you'd really be better off looking for one of Galouye's other novels.
Galouye wrote some pretty good novels for the time, including Dark Universe, which was nominated for a Hugo and Simulacron-3, which was made into a German TV mini-series and later remade into a theatrical release movie in 1999 that was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film (it lost to The Matrix).
So it's not that The Infinite Man was written by a terrible author. But the novel really doesn't hold up well. As several people mention in their reviews, it's full of slang from the 1960s; drug slang as well as general cultural slang from the era. The weird thing is that the author doesn't use the slang words correctly. It might be that he's trying to show that language usage has changed between the 1960s and the far-flung future when the story takes place (1980). But it reads more like an author's attempt to use hip slang without understanding the usage.
The plot has been pretty well summed up by other reviews here: there's a god-like creative entity that has decided to inhabit Milton Bradford, a random hippy drug addict on Earth. It periodically surfaces and does something weird like change the value of pi or change the speed of light slightly. Scientists have figured out what's up and are spending a lot of effort to keep Milton's mind occupied so he won't accidentally destroy the Universe. Things don't go as planned, in part because it turns out there's another entity around, a destructive entity.
Visually, it might make a good end-of-the-world disaster movie but as a novel, the best I can say is that it's not boring. And there are a few good laughs from a religious cult that wears their clothes inside out and pronounces their names backwards. But you'd really be better off looking for one of Galouye's other novels.
March 7, 2012
I remember reading this book a few years back, getting to the end of it and asking myself "WTF did I just read?"
There is some really neat conceptual stuff at the end, but for the most part, I found all the characters unlikable, and their actions to be utterly mystifying.
The biggest problem, though, was the use of slang. I'm all for writing the way people talk, but I'll be shocked if anyone has EVER talked like this. It's like an alien listened to some beatniks and decided that was how the english language was. The author uses "cat" instead of "Guy" or "person" or "man" or "dude" or "buddy" so consistently that I was under the impression that this book was actually about cat people for a while. I plunged on and on through the text, only vaguely understanding what was going on until we get to the epilogue, and I don't really understand what's going on, there, either but it seemed pretty awesome. Not worth the time investment that reading the rest of this damn thing cost me, though.
There is some really neat conceptual stuff at the end, but for the most part, I found all the characters unlikable, and their actions to be utterly mystifying.
The biggest problem, though, was the use of slang. I'm all for writing the way people talk, but I'll be shocked if anyone has EVER talked like this. It's like an alien listened to some beatniks and decided that was how the english language was. The author uses "cat" instead of "Guy" or "person" or "man" or "dude" or "buddy" so consistently that I was under the impression that this book was actually about cat people for a while. I plunged on and on through the text, only vaguely understanding what was going on until we get to the epilogue, and I don't really understand what's going on, there, either but it seemed pretty awesome. Not worth the time investment that reading the rest of this damn thing cost me, though.
November 16, 2022
I’m already being fucked into existential mind death by this person trying to say that the universe always existed. Shouldn’t that be a 50/50 that there is anything here at all.
I got excited when I looked into the novel and read how it contains two other sci-fi stories published previously in a journal. One of them was in the paranoia genre. And I was waiting for the paranoia plot line to start up, and it isn’t until Bradford is face to face with one of his stalkers that I realise this is the paranoia stuff. It’s very simple. There’s not much character to the paranoia, unlike ‘Klute,’ or ‘Fragment of Fear.’
I was convinced at the end to put a 3 star rating on ‘The Infinite Man.’ But with the first hundred and thirty five pages behind my finger I pudged the second star.
Chapter 11 is where the real turning point hits. The majority of the book is this guy with the powers of God during Creation contained within his body. Unbeknownst to him, that part of his existence is affecting mathematical concepts which, in turn, adjust those physical things to the new values of pi, and the speed of light.
Chapter 11 brings our villain to full villainy. In a scene that feels straight out of a campy superhero tv show, or recently in the ‘Wonder Woman’ movie where Pedro Pascal becomes one with an ominous wishing stone and is a little schizophrenic. Well, a power hungry man named Powers gets in touch with a force existing on a similar plain to the soul of Creation. When Powers tries to kill himself, he had been doing such a good fuck up job that the anti-force stops him.
So the last third is a rather good sci-fi romp. With cataclysms and the idiocy of humanity when met with nonsense. The anti-force states that Creation and Destruction is more interesting when emotions are involved.
With a far out ending, and all the genres dipped into, it is more valuable than ‘Dark Universe.’ But if you want something really stupid and easy to read I wouldn’t burn ‘Dark Universe’ yet, because ‘Infinite Man’ is halfway skippable. I was skipping to dialogue, much like what I did with Christopher Fowler’s short stories. And even then the dialogue isn’t impressive. There’s way too much withheld info and sub par writing for this book. It makes sense if you understand that people use slang, Robyn.
It’s not about a happy God who contains Infinity rocking around 50s America (if not at the year 3000) as much as the naked-scientist-Superman cover hints.
The God Within
IT lived in Milton Bradford.
IT could make planets vanish, alter mathematical constants, erase the laws of chance.
IT had the power to change the entire Universe. Or destroy it utterly.
I got excited when I looked into the novel and read how it contains two other sci-fi stories published previously in a journal. One of them was in the paranoia genre. And I was waiting for the paranoia plot line to start up, and it isn’t until Bradford is face to face with one of his stalkers that I realise this is the paranoia stuff. It’s very simple. There’s not much character to the paranoia, unlike ‘Klute,’ or ‘Fragment of Fear.’
I was convinced at the end to put a 3 star rating on ‘The Infinite Man.’ But with the first hundred and thirty five pages behind my finger I pudged the second star.
Chapter 11 is where the real turning point hits. The majority of the book is this guy with the powers of God during Creation contained within his body. Unbeknownst to him, that part of his existence is affecting mathematical concepts which, in turn, adjust those physical things to the new values of pi, and the speed of light.
Chapter 11 brings our villain to full villainy. In a scene that feels straight out of a campy superhero tv show, or recently in the ‘Wonder Woman’ movie where Pedro Pascal becomes one with an ominous wishing stone and is a little schizophrenic. Well, a power hungry man named Powers gets in touch with a force existing on a similar plain to the soul of Creation. When Powers tries to kill himself, he had been doing such a good fuck up job that the anti-force stops him.
So the last third is a rather good sci-fi romp. With cataclysms and the idiocy of humanity when met with nonsense. The anti-force states that Creation and Destruction is more interesting when emotions are involved.
With a far out ending, and all the genres dipped into, it is more valuable than ‘Dark Universe.’ But if you want something really stupid and easy to read I wouldn’t burn ‘Dark Universe’ yet, because ‘Infinite Man’ is halfway skippable. I was skipping to dialogue, much like what I did with Christopher Fowler’s short stories. And even then the dialogue isn’t impressive. There’s way too much withheld info and sub par writing for this book. It makes sense if you understand that people use slang, Robyn.
It’s not about a happy God who contains Infinity rocking around 50s America (if not at the year 3000) as much as the naked-scientist-Superman cover hints.
The God Within
IT lived in Milton Bradford.
IT could make planets vanish, alter mathematical constants, erase the laws of chance.
IT had the power to change the entire Universe. Or destroy it utterly.
April 3, 2019
Definitely an acquired taste. Almost a caricature of the 60's - Sex, drug, rock and roll, odd religion.
It is a bit of a riff on the question - Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?
It is a bit of a riff on the question - Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?
May 23, 2022
Libro piene di ottime intuizioni. Un po' the Truman show, La storia infinita e Inception. Poco soddisfacente, però, la spiegazione del "meccanismo" che poteva risolversi moooolto meglio.
March 3, 2025
Sono di parte, lo stile e l'originalità di Galouye dopo aver letto Simulacron 3 mi fanno impazzire e li consiglierò sempre
July 21, 2009
Egads! This book deserves a negative six stars or a five, im not sure which. Its been a long time since ive involuntarily defenistrated a book, but page 139 did it. Deep hurting. No, really, i havent come across a book since I,weapon, or Kajira of Gor that could maintain such a constant kick in the groin style of pain. But it does it, from start to finish, it exudes sucktastitude off of every freaking page. Amazing. Stunning. ill be bitter for years.
So yeah, the plot. Some scientist schmucks are running a 'project genesis' looking for the nuetrons that are constantly created that cause the universe to expand.(!) They accidentally find god, or the creative force, reincarnited in a passed out hippy, named branford, in a bush. They find a pyschatrist [with a secret identity that caused said defenistration:]to put god in hypnosis and get him to blow up pluto and send alpha centaurii into supernova (!), for good ol fashioned proof. Now they need to keep god occupied so he doesnt harm anything, by having a CEO fake his death, and appoint schmuckford as his heir(!). Sensible. Except they muck around and bother him, so Bradford redefines Pi (!), erases the quasars from the cosmos, then the book trades in any remaining credibility at all and bradford changes the laws of probability to an inverse bell curve (!), and the world reaches terminal wank and goes freight train style towards the apocolypse over the last 100 pages. Its dumb, and this all barely scratches the surface of the ocean of stupid this book contains. And of cour'se in books like this, it goes without saying, that the last chapter is 'amazing'.
There are also annoying sideplots of God/Bradford's love with his secretary, a cult that wears its clothes inside out and sings hymns to a rock band , and has mobious loop roller coasters (its far worse than it sounds), and a war in turkey between the us and rusia that ends in a failed nuclear exchange.
At least it wasnt boring.
So yeah, the plot. Some scientist schmucks are running a 'project genesis' looking for the nuetrons that are constantly created that cause the universe to expand.(!) They accidentally find god, or the creative force, reincarnited in a passed out hippy, named branford, in a bush. They find a pyschatrist [with a secret identity that caused said defenistration:]to put god in hypnosis and get him to blow up pluto and send alpha centaurii into supernova (!), for good ol fashioned proof. Now they need to keep god occupied so he doesnt harm anything, by having a CEO fake his death, and appoint schmuckford as his heir(!). Sensible. Except they muck around and bother him, so Bradford redefines Pi (!), erases the quasars from the cosmos, then the book trades in any remaining credibility at all and bradford changes the laws of probability to an inverse bell curve (!), and the world reaches terminal wank and goes freight train style towards the apocolypse over the last 100 pages. Its dumb, and this all barely scratches the surface of the ocean of stupid this book contains. And of cour'se in books like this, it goes without saying, that the last chapter is 'amazing'.
There are also annoying sideplots of God/Bradford's love with his secretary, a cult that wears its clothes inside out and sings hymns to a rock band , and has mobious loop roller coasters (its far worse than it sounds), and a war in turkey between the us and rusia that ends in a failed nuclear exchange.
At least it wasnt boring.
August 13, 2013
Galouye è risucito ad unire le principali tesi gnostiche con la fantascienza in due novelle ben scritte, anche se a tratti un poco cervellotiche.
December 29, 2023
Read, then speed read, then flipped. Impulse buys never work out for me.
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