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Shadows in the Sun
Anthropologist Paul Ellery discovers that the small Texas town of Jefferson Springs is actually an imitation of small-town America created by the aliens who now offer him a chance to explore the universe
- GenresScience FictionFiction
207 pages, hardback
First published January 1, 1954
10 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Chad Oliver
167 books18 followersSymmes Chadwick Oliver (30 March 1928–9 August 1993) was an award winning science fiction and Western writer and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. He was also one of the founders of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 29, 2021
Shadows in the Sun is an excellent 1950's alien-invasion story. It features an anthropologist, as most of Oliver's books did, and is set in a small Texas town that would have been equally at home in The Twilight Zone or your favorite Cold War eerie B-movie. Read it in black and white!
November 7, 2021
My introduction to the subgenre of "Anthropological sci-Fi". Read under harsh circumstances, hot sunny weather and barren lands, almost like the book's, a good companion for those times. A mystifying nostalgia right out of 1950s.
October 5, 2025
To call this forgotten 1954 SF novel an alien invasion tale would be doing disservice to just how subtly alien it it, but calling it a home-grown tale of Earth would discount how otherworldly and understated Chad Oliver can be. I only picked up this novel because I'm interested in collecting Crown SF's "Classics of Modern Science Fiction" line, in which this was (rightfully) reprinted, but the reading experience might just encourage me to burn through Oliver's whole bibliography. This isn't a perfect novel, but it is a standout one, and I can't wait to talk about what about it did it for me and what didn't - but first, as always, let's talk about plot.
*Shadows in the Sun* is about a young anthropologist named Paul Ellrey who's decided to study how rural Americans live their every day lives by observing the ebbs and flows of a small Texan town called Jefferson Springs. Unfortunately, Jefferson Springs hasn't been too kind to him; although most of its six thousand inhabitants are willing to answer his questions, he gets the feeling they're telling mostly lies, and he can't figure out why no one in the town has lived there for more than fifteen years. In his frustration he drives up to a local ranch, only to see a spaceship deposit its rancher and a clutch of other people down from the heavens. Paul doesn't comprehend what he just witnessed, so he confronts the rancher, who completely gaslights him. Paul heads back to his hotel and almost starts doubting himself, but then two men show up to take him to ...
What comes next is more or less a series of vignettes. We see ...
The thing that sticks with me most about this book a couple weeks on is just how warm and humanistic it is in just about every way, starting with the prose. Oliver was an academic, but his writing never feels like it belongs in a textbook; it's layered and textured and preoccupies itself with very human things. For example, when Paul meets an Earth-grown man who lives among the aliens, he compares him to a kid he once knew who joined a sports team late in the season and reveled in taking just as much credit for the team's success as everybody else even though he contributed very little compared to his teammates. These kind of anecdotes somehow don't feel very dated, and while you can tell by the set pieces that this short novel was written in the 1950s, its prose is far too readable for you to assume it's 50s science fiction. The first couple pages set the tone of well-crafted atmosphere ("even the wood was sweating"; "he aimed a wobbly smoke ring in the general direction of the Judge Roy Bean and watched it battle the current from the air conditioner"), and Oliver's comforting prose always strikes a balance between nice turns of phrase like those and introspection and Oliver ruminates on how he has become the aboriginal he has learned so much about. It's just endearingly balanced, and his prose is one of the reasons I can't wait to read more Oliver.
Just as Paul obsesses over the fact that he's now the native being approached by settlers (a sentiment that was handled more... evenly in this novel than it would be in today's anti-colonialist narratives), you can tell that anthropology was a huge part of Oliver's life. While most of his contemporaries were concerning themselves with the Cold War and potential nuclear conflict (just look at Jack Finney's *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* to see how a contemporary took the theme of alien interlopers), Oliver was thinking about a different movement within American culture - urbanization - and went out of his way to create a charming and not completely unconvincing explanation for that. And while some novels from this time concerned themselves with physics of exogeology, Oliver concerned himself with the hard facts about anthropology, and seeing Paul's thought processes should remind you of reading books from the like of Hal Clement where someone's discipline seeps into their fiction. Now, to Oliver's credit, it probably won't seem overwhelming to you, and that's partially because he's so slick about it, even if it's partially because you probably won't feel as out of place reading about people and their behavior as you would reading about screwy atmospheres or something like that. But this is still a deeply anthropological work, and I think I enjoyed its treatment of the subject more than, say, Ursula K. Le Guin's - maybe that's sacrilege, but I just find Oliver's strand of prose so much more comfortable and convincing. To each their own, though, because... I didn't adore everything about this book....
For all that I liked about this book, it just doesn't feel like a four-star to me, and I think that's at least partially due to its plotting. The plot does feel a little haphazard, and runs like seem almost fever dream-ish, and while that might have been what Oliver was going for, it pushed me out of the story more than it pulled me into Paul's dilemma. And the conversations between and it kind of made me question Paul's character. He was an interesting character in general because he felt so real, but sometimes when a character is so real it also makes it a little tricky to get too strongly behind them because you see all their flaws, and you don't know if the flaws are the author's way of painting a three-dimensional picture of their subject or if they're the result of flippant and kind of hazy plotting. Maybe Oliver deserves more credit than I'm giving him, but the ending seemed a bit flaccid and overwrought. Like, I really appreciate , but despite everything I liked it just felt overhyped and not quite in line with the patchwork narrative of the book before. I'm just not sure what the point of everything here was, and maybe that's my fault as a reader, but it's pulling me back from giving an 8/10, even though I really want to.
Despite those issues, this is a really nicely written and textured novel that pulled me in, and I'll gladly give it a high 7.5/10. Oliver seems like a really intriguing voice in both midcentury and anthropological science fiction, and even though there are things about the structure of this novel which left me put off without being able to put my finger on exactly why, it was worth my time and it'll probably be worth yours too. To see what I think next time I get my hands on a Chad Oliver novel, stay tuned to Darnoc Leadburger here on Goodreads. Thanks for reading this review, and hopefully I'll see you for another one; bye for now...
*Shadows in the Sun* is about a young anthropologist named Paul Ellrey who's decided to study how rural Americans live their every day lives by observing the ebbs and flows of a small Texan town called Jefferson Springs. Unfortunately, Jefferson Springs hasn't been too kind to him; although most of its six thousand inhabitants are willing to answer his questions, he gets the feeling they're telling mostly lies, and he can't figure out why no one in the town has lived there for more than fifteen years. In his frustration he drives up to a local ranch, only to see a spaceship deposit its rancher and a clutch of other people down from the heavens. Paul doesn't comprehend what he just witnessed, so he confronts the rancher, who completely gaslights him. Paul heads back to his hotel and almost starts doubting himself, but then two men show up to take him to ...
What comes next is more or less a series of vignettes. We see ...
The thing that sticks with me most about this book a couple weeks on is just how warm and humanistic it is in just about every way, starting with the prose. Oliver was an academic, but his writing never feels like it belongs in a textbook; it's layered and textured and preoccupies itself with very human things. For example, when Paul meets an Earth-grown man who lives among the aliens, he compares him to a kid he once knew who joined a sports team late in the season and reveled in taking just as much credit for the team's success as everybody else even though he contributed very little compared to his teammates. These kind of anecdotes somehow don't feel very dated, and while you can tell by the set pieces that this short novel was written in the 1950s, its prose is far too readable for you to assume it's 50s science fiction. The first couple pages set the tone of well-crafted atmosphere ("even the wood was sweating"; "he aimed a wobbly smoke ring in the general direction of the Judge Roy Bean and watched it battle the current from the air conditioner"), and Oliver's comforting prose always strikes a balance between nice turns of phrase like those and introspection and Oliver ruminates on how he has become the aboriginal he has learned so much about. It's just endearingly balanced, and his prose is one of the reasons I can't wait to read more Oliver.
Just as Paul obsesses over the fact that he's now the native being approached by settlers (a sentiment that was handled more... evenly in this novel than it would be in today's anti-colonialist narratives), you can tell that anthropology was a huge part of Oliver's life. While most of his contemporaries were concerning themselves with the Cold War and potential nuclear conflict (just look at Jack Finney's *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* to see how a contemporary took the theme of alien interlopers), Oliver was thinking about a different movement within American culture - urbanization - and went out of his way to create a charming and not completely unconvincing explanation for that. And while some novels from this time concerned themselves with physics of exogeology, Oliver concerned himself with the hard facts about anthropology, and seeing Paul's thought processes should remind you of reading books from the like of Hal Clement where someone's discipline seeps into their fiction. Now, to Oliver's credit, it probably won't seem overwhelming to you, and that's partially because he's so slick about it, even if it's partially because you probably won't feel as out of place reading about people and their behavior as you would reading about screwy atmospheres or something like that. But this is still a deeply anthropological work, and I think I enjoyed its treatment of the subject more than, say, Ursula K. Le Guin's - maybe that's sacrilege, but I just find Oliver's strand of prose so much more comfortable and convincing. To each their own, though, because... I didn't adore everything about this book....
For all that I liked about this book, it just doesn't feel like a four-star to me, and I think that's at least partially due to its plotting. The plot does feel a little haphazard, and runs like seem almost fever dream-ish, and while that might have been what Oliver was going for, it pushed me out of the story more than it pulled me into Paul's dilemma. And the conversations between and it kind of made me question Paul's character. He was an interesting character in general because he felt so real, but sometimes when a character is so real it also makes it a little tricky to get too strongly behind them because you see all their flaws, and you don't know if the flaws are the author's way of painting a three-dimensional picture of their subject or if they're the result of flippant and kind of hazy plotting. Maybe Oliver deserves more credit than I'm giving him, but the ending seemed a bit flaccid and overwrought. Like, I really appreciate , but despite everything I liked it just felt overhyped and not quite in line with the patchwork narrative of the book before. I'm just not sure what the point of everything here was, and maybe that's my fault as a reader, but it's pulling me back from giving an 8/10, even though I really want to.
Despite those issues, this is a really nicely written and textured novel that pulled me in, and I'll gladly give it a high 7.5/10. Oliver seems like a really intriguing voice in both midcentury and anthropological science fiction, and even though there are things about the structure of this novel which left me put off without being able to put my finger on exactly why, it was worth my time and it'll probably be worth yours too. To see what I think next time I get my hands on a Chad Oliver novel, stay tuned to Darnoc Leadburger here on Goodreads. Thanks for reading this review, and hopefully I'll see you for another one; bye for now...
April 6, 2023
Although it's been almost seven years since I read Chad Oliver's masterful fourth novel, "Unearthly Neighbors" (1960), such are the evocative atmosphere and compelling alien depictions in that book that I still manage to remember it quite well. And indeed, "Unearthly Neighbors" just might be the most convincingly realistic description of "first contact" on another world that a reader could ever hope to encounter. I've been wanting to check out more of the Cincinnati-born author ever since, and fortunately picked up one of his earlier works, "Shadows in the Sun," as my next Chad Oliver experience; a very good choice, as things have turned out!
"Shadows in the Sun" was Oliver's second novel and his first one written for an adult audience. His debut novel, the highly regarded "juvenile" entitled "Mists of Dawn," had been released in 1952; one of 37 YA sci-fi works in the renowned John Winston Co. series. "Shadows in the Sun" would be released two years later, in December 1954, as both a $2 Ballantine hardcover and, simultaneously, as a 35-cent Ballantine paperback; Oliver was 26 at the time, and seven years away from getting his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of California. The book would be given another hardcover treatment by the British publisher Max Reinhardt in '55, become a French paperback in '56, an Argentinian paperback in '57, a British paperback in '65, and a German paperback in '67 (bearing the altered title "Die Vom Anderen Stern," or "Those From the Other Star"). Ballantine would rerelease the book in 1968 as a 50-cent paperback, and then...OOPs (out of prints) for 17 years, until Crown Publishers opted to resurrect it as one of the entries in its Classics of Modern Science Fiction series, in a cute little hardback with a Michael Booth cover, in 1985. And this is the edition that I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on. Like "Unearthly Neighbors," also in this series, the book features a scholarly introduction by George Zebrowski and, even better, a highly informative afterword by Chad Oliver himself, written eight years before his untimely passing in 1993, at age 65. The author would ultimately write four sci-fi short story collections as well as nine novels (that juvenile sci-fi, five adult sci-fi, and three Westerns), and of those many works, as he reveals in his afterword here, "Shadows in the Sun" is the book that is "closest to [his] heart." And with its autobiographical elements and a story line that is set in an environment that the author obviously knew all too well, it is easy to understand why.
Oliver's book introduces us to an anthropology professor named Paul Ellery, who has taken a leave of absence from his post at the University of Texas at Austin to engage in a research project. Thus, we encounter him in the little burg of Jefferson Springs, TX, doing a study of life in small-town America, and at the end of two months there, when we first meet him, Ellery is a very confused man. Things in Jefferson Springs just don't seem to add up. For one thing, although the town has been in existence for 132 years, none of its 6,000 residents has been there for longer than 15. The people there seem oddly off, their houses staying unlit at night, and the whole environment comes off as being somewhat too pat and contrived. Although the townsfolk do open up to Ellery after initially being decidedly unfriendly, the scientist senses that they are all play-acting. And then one night, he sees a metallic sphere descend from an enormous hovering spaceship above rancher Melvin Thorne's house, and Thorne and several others emerge. (And no, this is hardly a spoiler; it transpires on page 16 of the novel.) Paul is understandably aghast at the sight, and brazenly knocks on the rancher's door to demand answers, only to be given the innocent act by the seeming Texan. But a little while later, two men arrive at Paul's hotel room, bring him into the countryside, and take him, by that same metallic sphere, up to the mother ship, where our anthropologist hero meets a fat little red-faced man named "John," who explains to him what's been going on.
John, it seems, is an expert of sorts at getting to know planetary natives. He tells Paul that yes, he comes from an Earth-like planet that is part of a galactic federation. Apparently, there are any number of Earth-like planets out there, each of which has produced beings just like Homo sapiens. But those planets have all reached the point of overpopulation, and so now the federation is surreptitiously depositing its overflow on even the comparatively primitive and unoccupied habitable worlds that it can find, such as ours. Jefferson Springs is just one of many such alien enclaves around our planet, and the galactic settlers, far from being hostile invaders, wish to only live in peace and isolation, and indeed have laws forbidding the use of violence and interference in native affairs. Recognizing Paul's special abilities as a scientist, John even offers him the chance of becoming one of them; of being given special training and education at some Center far away, and then a resettlement, perhaps on Earth, perhaps elsewhere. Thus, for the duration of Oliver's book, we see Paul struggle with the question of what is best for him to do. We watch as he takes a mandatory job in Jefferson Springs, working on its small newspaper; as he enters into an affair with the beautiful blonde alien schoolteacher named Cynthia; as he attends an outdoor communion rite with the other settlers; as he confusedly returns to Austin to be with his old girlfriend, Anne; and as he further agonizes over his big decision, and the New Year's Eve deadline for that decision draws ever closer....
Now, whereas in another "alien invasion" novel the reader might feel concern for the safety of the protagonist, interestingly, that is hardly the case here. Paul Ellery is at no point in any danger whatsoever from these alien settlers--they are not the pod people of Jack Finney's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," or the murderous visitors from TV's wonderful '60s show "The Invaders." In Oliver's book, the suspense comes from our uncertainty as to Paul's big decision, and the author keeps us guessing as to that life-changing decision till practically the very last page. The book does provide some good food for debate; some readers will certainly not agree with the tough choice that Ellery makes on that penultimate page. Readers should also not be looking for any hints of strangeness amongst those aliens, either; as John makes a point of telling Ellery, they're pretty much just like us, despite their space flight capabilities. These are hardly the sci-fi supermen of pulp literature that John makes a point of decrying; "no monsters, no fiends, no wicked prime ministers," as he describes his culture to Paul. What little "cosmic awe" there is to be had in Oliver's book comes from Paul's glimpse, in a futuristic cinema on board the alien vessel, of The Others: oozing, slimy, undulating things that flap through space and attack starships, the mere sight of which causes Ellery to scream in fright, and a menace that the worlds of our galaxy will need to eventually face one day together.
Oliver was one of the earliest writers--perhaps the earliest--in the literary genre now known as anthropological science fiction, and his young enthusiasm in his chosen field is very much in evidence here. He references some of the famous anthropologists and scientists who he'd been influenced by, such as (James) West, (W. Lloyd) Warner, Clyde Kluckhohn, (Hortense) Powdermaker, (Robert) Redfield, (Alfred) Kroeber, (William) Howells, V. Gordon Childe, (Leslie) White, (Bronislaw) Malinowski and (Ralph) Linton, and the subject of acculturation--the change that occurs in individuals when two cultures collide--is at the very heart of his book. And indeed, Paul very early comes to realize that he is the primitive aborigine here, and the starmen something on the order of the 16th century European colonials. The book poses and goes far in answering some interesting questions, such as: How can a person assimilate into a culture and yet remain who he/she is? Is it more important to go out into the cosmos or remain here and learn more about yourself and your own culture? Do technical achievements turn a people into a race of supermen? Should an invading culture leave a more primitive culture alone or try to influence its development? And Oliver tackles these weighty issues in a very engaging manner, indeed.
I mentioned earlier that this book is somewhat autobiographical in nature, and that is surely true...up to a point. Like Ellery, Chad Oliver was a big husky anthropologist who taught at the University of Texas at Austin. Both were pipe smokers, and both were fans of 1940s jazz (Oliver was even a DJ at a jazz station in the mid-'50s). And as the author tells us in his afterword, after moving with his family to Crystal City, TX (some 30 miles south of Uvalde) when he was 15 years old and in high school, he felt like something of an alien there...just as Paul does in Jefferson Springs. And the author's intimate knowledge of both Austin and the Hill Country is on full display here, both of which are wonderfully described.
Oliver's book is compulsively readable, unfailingly intelligent, and warmhearted, with credible characters and finely rendered dialogue. The author, here in his first novel for an adult audience, evinces a joy in language, his simply written but elegant prose almost coming off like that of Hemingway (of whom Oliver was an admitted fan). This is a book that aspires to the realms of quality literature. We are given lines such as:
"...The blazing white sun hung in the sky, almost motionless, as though it too were too hot to move. No cloud braved that furnace, and the heat beat down like boiled, invisible rain. Heat waves shimmered like glass in the still air and the parched earth took on the consistency of forgotten pottery...."
Oliver also throws in any number of dryly humorous lines, such as when Cynthia yells across a room and Paul reflects "She had a good pair of lungs, among other things," and when Ellery deems rancher Thorne "a Texas Babbitt from another planet." Any number of finely written sequences crop up, especially Paul's initial interview with Thorne; his first meeting with John aboard the starship; that very unusual outdoor communion, with all 6,000 Jefferson Springs residents in attendance; Ellery's tour of the starship; and, of course, the days leading up to Paul's big decision. Oliver, a confessed fan of science fiction from childhood, also takes some digs at the genre, as when John opines:
"...There's a whole literature down here that's positively stuffed with invading monsters, ghouls, and a frightfully dull army of dim-witted supermen who dash about through the air thinking at each other and throwing things about with mental force, whatever that is...Deplorable. The worser sort, that is...."
And, I might add, Oliver's book is, surprisingly, sexually frank, especially for 1954. Cynthia and Paul's relationship is blatantly sexual in nature, despite the fact that Anne, Paul's longtime "steady," is waiting for her man impatiently at home. So yes, this really is at bottom a sci-fi novel for thinking adults, and one that consistently confounds the reader's expectations throughout.
I actually have hardly one quibble to lodge against Oliver's very fine work here. But if I were forced to make a single complaint, it is that the location given for Jefferson Springs (120 miles south of San Antonio and 60 miles north of Eagle Pass) does not actually make sense when one looks at a map of Texas; perhaps the author was endeavoring to be vague here, so as not to draw too fine a comparison between the fictitious town and his boyhood home of Crystal City. But really, that's about it. "Shadows in the Sun" is a wonderful read, and one that I can recommend highly. It is "very likely the best science fiction novel of the year," said sci-fi editor J. Francis McComas in his "New York Times Book Review"--a year, mind you, that also gave us "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," Edgar Pangborn's "A Mirror for Observers," Robert A. Heinlein's "The Star Beast," Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" and Murray Leinster's "The Forgotten Planet"--and darn it, he may be right! I now find myself wanting to read the third Oliver title in Crown's Classics of Modern Science Fiction series, namely "The Shores of Another Sea," from 1971, and fortunately, that book has also been sitting patiently in my bookcase for a good long while. Rather than wait another seven years for my next Chad Oliver experience, I do believe that that is where I will be heading next. Stay tuned....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Chad Oliver....)
"Shadows in the Sun" was Oliver's second novel and his first one written for an adult audience. His debut novel, the highly regarded "juvenile" entitled "Mists of Dawn," had been released in 1952; one of 37 YA sci-fi works in the renowned John Winston Co. series. "Shadows in the Sun" would be released two years later, in December 1954, as both a $2 Ballantine hardcover and, simultaneously, as a 35-cent Ballantine paperback; Oliver was 26 at the time, and seven years away from getting his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of California. The book would be given another hardcover treatment by the British publisher Max Reinhardt in '55, become a French paperback in '56, an Argentinian paperback in '57, a British paperback in '65, and a German paperback in '67 (bearing the altered title "Die Vom Anderen Stern," or "Those From the Other Star"). Ballantine would rerelease the book in 1968 as a 50-cent paperback, and then...OOPs (out of prints) for 17 years, until Crown Publishers opted to resurrect it as one of the entries in its Classics of Modern Science Fiction series, in a cute little hardback with a Michael Booth cover, in 1985. And this is the edition that I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on. Like "Unearthly Neighbors," also in this series, the book features a scholarly introduction by George Zebrowski and, even better, a highly informative afterword by Chad Oliver himself, written eight years before his untimely passing in 1993, at age 65. The author would ultimately write four sci-fi short story collections as well as nine novels (that juvenile sci-fi, five adult sci-fi, and three Westerns), and of those many works, as he reveals in his afterword here, "Shadows in the Sun" is the book that is "closest to [his] heart." And with its autobiographical elements and a story line that is set in an environment that the author obviously knew all too well, it is easy to understand why.
Oliver's book introduces us to an anthropology professor named Paul Ellery, who has taken a leave of absence from his post at the University of Texas at Austin to engage in a research project. Thus, we encounter him in the little burg of Jefferson Springs, TX, doing a study of life in small-town America, and at the end of two months there, when we first meet him, Ellery is a very confused man. Things in Jefferson Springs just don't seem to add up. For one thing, although the town has been in existence for 132 years, none of its 6,000 residents has been there for longer than 15. The people there seem oddly off, their houses staying unlit at night, and the whole environment comes off as being somewhat too pat and contrived. Although the townsfolk do open up to Ellery after initially being decidedly unfriendly, the scientist senses that they are all play-acting. And then one night, he sees a metallic sphere descend from an enormous hovering spaceship above rancher Melvin Thorne's house, and Thorne and several others emerge. (And no, this is hardly a spoiler; it transpires on page 16 of the novel.) Paul is understandably aghast at the sight, and brazenly knocks on the rancher's door to demand answers, only to be given the innocent act by the seeming Texan. But a little while later, two men arrive at Paul's hotel room, bring him into the countryside, and take him, by that same metallic sphere, up to the mother ship, where our anthropologist hero meets a fat little red-faced man named "John," who explains to him what's been going on.
John, it seems, is an expert of sorts at getting to know planetary natives. He tells Paul that yes, he comes from an Earth-like planet that is part of a galactic federation. Apparently, there are any number of Earth-like planets out there, each of which has produced beings just like Homo sapiens. But those planets have all reached the point of overpopulation, and so now the federation is surreptitiously depositing its overflow on even the comparatively primitive and unoccupied habitable worlds that it can find, such as ours. Jefferson Springs is just one of many such alien enclaves around our planet, and the galactic settlers, far from being hostile invaders, wish to only live in peace and isolation, and indeed have laws forbidding the use of violence and interference in native affairs. Recognizing Paul's special abilities as a scientist, John even offers him the chance of becoming one of them; of being given special training and education at some Center far away, and then a resettlement, perhaps on Earth, perhaps elsewhere. Thus, for the duration of Oliver's book, we see Paul struggle with the question of what is best for him to do. We watch as he takes a mandatory job in Jefferson Springs, working on its small newspaper; as he enters into an affair with the beautiful blonde alien schoolteacher named Cynthia; as he attends an outdoor communion rite with the other settlers; as he confusedly returns to Austin to be with his old girlfriend, Anne; and as he further agonizes over his big decision, and the New Year's Eve deadline for that decision draws ever closer....
Now, whereas in another "alien invasion" novel the reader might feel concern for the safety of the protagonist, interestingly, that is hardly the case here. Paul Ellery is at no point in any danger whatsoever from these alien settlers--they are not the pod people of Jack Finney's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," or the murderous visitors from TV's wonderful '60s show "The Invaders." In Oliver's book, the suspense comes from our uncertainty as to Paul's big decision, and the author keeps us guessing as to that life-changing decision till practically the very last page. The book does provide some good food for debate; some readers will certainly not agree with the tough choice that Ellery makes on that penultimate page. Readers should also not be looking for any hints of strangeness amongst those aliens, either; as John makes a point of telling Ellery, they're pretty much just like us, despite their space flight capabilities. These are hardly the sci-fi supermen of pulp literature that John makes a point of decrying; "no monsters, no fiends, no wicked prime ministers," as he describes his culture to Paul. What little "cosmic awe" there is to be had in Oliver's book comes from Paul's glimpse, in a futuristic cinema on board the alien vessel, of The Others: oozing, slimy, undulating things that flap through space and attack starships, the mere sight of which causes Ellery to scream in fright, and a menace that the worlds of our galaxy will need to eventually face one day together.
Oliver was one of the earliest writers--perhaps the earliest--in the literary genre now known as anthropological science fiction, and his young enthusiasm in his chosen field is very much in evidence here. He references some of the famous anthropologists and scientists who he'd been influenced by, such as (James) West, (W. Lloyd) Warner, Clyde Kluckhohn, (Hortense) Powdermaker, (Robert) Redfield, (Alfred) Kroeber, (William) Howells, V. Gordon Childe, (Leslie) White, (Bronislaw) Malinowski and (Ralph) Linton, and the subject of acculturation--the change that occurs in individuals when two cultures collide--is at the very heart of his book. And indeed, Paul very early comes to realize that he is the primitive aborigine here, and the starmen something on the order of the 16th century European colonials. The book poses and goes far in answering some interesting questions, such as: How can a person assimilate into a culture and yet remain who he/she is? Is it more important to go out into the cosmos or remain here and learn more about yourself and your own culture? Do technical achievements turn a people into a race of supermen? Should an invading culture leave a more primitive culture alone or try to influence its development? And Oliver tackles these weighty issues in a very engaging manner, indeed.
I mentioned earlier that this book is somewhat autobiographical in nature, and that is surely true...up to a point. Like Ellery, Chad Oliver was a big husky anthropologist who taught at the University of Texas at Austin. Both were pipe smokers, and both were fans of 1940s jazz (Oliver was even a DJ at a jazz station in the mid-'50s). And as the author tells us in his afterword, after moving with his family to Crystal City, TX (some 30 miles south of Uvalde) when he was 15 years old and in high school, he felt like something of an alien there...just as Paul does in Jefferson Springs. And the author's intimate knowledge of both Austin and the Hill Country is on full display here, both of which are wonderfully described.
Oliver's book is compulsively readable, unfailingly intelligent, and warmhearted, with credible characters and finely rendered dialogue. The author, here in his first novel for an adult audience, evinces a joy in language, his simply written but elegant prose almost coming off like that of Hemingway (of whom Oliver was an admitted fan). This is a book that aspires to the realms of quality literature. We are given lines such as:
"...The blazing white sun hung in the sky, almost motionless, as though it too were too hot to move. No cloud braved that furnace, and the heat beat down like boiled, invisible rain. Heat waves shimmered like glass in the still air and the parched earth took on the consistency of forgotten pottery...."
Oliver also throws in any number of dryly humorous lines, such as when Cynthia yells across a room and Paul reflects "She had a good pair of lungs, among other things," and when Ellery deems rancher Thorne "a Texas Babbitt from another planet." Any number of finely written sequences crop up, especially Paul's initial interview with Thorne; his first meeting with John aboard the starship; that very unusual outdoor communion, with all 6,000 Jefferson Springs residents in attendance; Ellery's tour of the starship; and, of course, the days leading up to Paul's big decision. Oliver, a confessed fan of science fiction from childhood, also takes some digs at the genre, as when John opines:
"...There's a whole literature down here that's positively stuffed with invading monsters, ghouls, and a frightfully dull army of dim-witted supermen who dash about through the air thinking at each other and throwing things about with mental force, whatever that is...Deplorable. The worser sort, that is...."
And, I might add, Oliver's book is, surprisingly, sexually frank, especially for 1954. Cynthia and Paul's relationship is blatantly sexual in nature, despite the fact that Anne, Paul's longtime "steady," is waiting for her man impatiently at home. So yes, this really is at bottom a sci-fi novel for thinking adults, and one that consistently confounds the reader's expectations throughout.
I actually have hardly one quibble to lodge against Oliver's very fine work here. But if I were forced to make a single complaint, it is that the location given for Jefferson Springs (120 miles south of San Antonio and 60 miles north of Eagle Pass) does not actually make sense when one looks at a map of Texas; perhaps the author was endeavoring to be vague here, so as not to draw too fine a comparison between the fictitious town and his boyhood home of Crystal City. But really, that's about it. "Shadows in the Sun" is a wonderful read, and one that I can recommend highly. It is "very likely the best science fiction novel of the year," said sci-fi editor J. Francis McComas in his "New York Times Book Review"--a year, mind you, that also gave us "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," Edgar Pangborn's "A Mirror for Observers," Robert A. Heinlein's "The Star Beast," Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" and Murray Leinster's "The Forgotten Planet"--and darn it, he may be right! I now find myself wanting to read the third Oliver title in Crown's Classics of Modern Science Fiction series, namely "The Shores of Another Sea," from 1971, and fortunately, that book has also been sitting patiently in my bookcase for a good long while. Rather than wait another seven years for my next Chad Oliver experience, I do believe that that is where I will be heading next. Stay tuned....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Chad Oliver....)
June 17, 2019
I thoroughly enjoyed this book for several reasons, some typical and some not so. First, let me explain how I encountered this book. This past weekend was Father’s Day, and my wife’s present to me was a trip to the Rare Editions section of our favorite Half Price Books store. I found an inscribed edition of this book written by the professor I took Intro to Anthropology from back in the mid-70s at UT Austin and I couldn’t pass it up. I knew at the time he was an SF author but I have never read any of his work until now. Well, I am delighted to have finally remedied that unconscionable lapse! But the story (my story with this book) is deeper than that. Two years ago I started serious work on a novel about a man who discovers he may be part or wholly alien set in East Texas. Finding this book, about an anthropologist who discovers that aliens, colonists, have taken over a West Texas town, is just too much of a coincidence. Add to that the fact that Oliver published this book the year I was born. Someone could easily read into the situation that my encountering this book at this time in my life goes beyond coincidence and flirts heavily with synchronicity.
Okay, now for some review. The story departs from the garish alien-as-superman, bug-eyed-monsters kind of science fiction that many people today think most 40s and 50s SF was like. Later, the 60s and 70s would usher in a “new wave” of SF more thoughtful and less stereotypical, less focused on UFOs and the awaiting disaster of nuclear Armageddon that so obsessed the SF culture of the 50s. Shadows in the Sun is a precursor to that “new wave” in that it posits some serious, intelligent questions about the nature of humanity and takes a more nuanced approach to speculating about what first contact might be like. Some reviewers have shied away from calling this book a classic. Well, that may well be because it was ahead of its time. Granted it’s not on a par, perhaps, with More Than Human by Spurgeon, The Shrinking Man by Matheson, The Big Time by Leiber, anything from that era by Ray Bradbury or Robert Heinlein, or may others, but, shall we say, it is an important book, because it is the first or at least one of the first to tackle the thorny issues of humanity right here on Earth in a contemporary time and setting, and do so in a thought-provoking and memorable way.
Okay, now for some review. The story departs from the garish alien-as-superman, bug-eyed-monsters kind of science fiction that many people today think most 40s and 50s SF was like. Later, the 60s and 70s would usher in a “new wave” of SF more thoughtful and less stereotypical, less focused on UFOs and the awaiting disaster of nuclear Armageddon that so obsessed the SF culture of the 50s. Shadows in the Sun is a precursor to that “new wave” in that it posits some serious, intelligent questions about the nature of humanity and takes a more nuanced approach to speculating about what first contact might be like. Some reviewers have shied away from calling this book a classic. Well, that may well be because it was ahead of its time. Granted it’s not on a par, perhaps, with More Than Human by Spurgeon, The Shrinking Man by Matheson, The Big Time by Leiber, anything from that era by Ray Bradbury or Robert Heinlein, or may others, but, shall we say, it is an important book, because it is the first or at least one of the first to tackle the thorny issues of humanity right here on Earth in a contemporary time and setting, and do so in a thought-provoking and memorable way.
January 15, 2014
Every science fiction author of the 1950's wrote an alien invasion story. This is one of the best.
January 15, 2019
Almost exactly like if the TV show Schitt's Creek was set in the 1950s and had a major plot twist.
February 3, 2023
A Fun & thrilling misadventure encircled romance!
HOW TO COURT A COVERT LADY was an exciting read that interweaved so many gems in its intricate fabric that I couldn't help but become entangled. Creating this well put together romance that unfolded and built from the mysteries and delicious personalities encased within the LCA - a covert club masquerading as the Ladies Charitable Association - to a clue hunting misadventure to find one of its members, Jack's missing sister, Lydia. As sparks flew and intrigue bubbled beneath their mutual attraction... between our secret encumbered leads, the perceptive covert master fencer, Pippa and steadfast Earl, Jack, from first collison.
Hartwell, a new but marvellous find for me, hooked me in instantly with her engaging writing style that pulled and thrilled with its exciting quick pace, witty banter and well defined, multifaceted characters that vividly resonated and jumped from the page.
Pippa and Jack, swirled with this delightfully compelling maelstrom of intriguing vulnerability and strength and had this engaging ability to look deeper, cut each other to the quick and gradually rebalance each others fears. That touched and played my emotions effortlessly as I laughed, swooned and thrummed with nervous tension as they struggled to desperately scratch out hints to uncovering Lydia's disappearance while attempting to fight their deep heady attraction... and thankfully failing spectacularly in all its intimate steamy yumminess. Reshaping their embarked on journey to one of self growth and reawakening. That shifted through Jack's blackmail of Pippa into helping him in the first place and this instabond born of electric connection and purpose, as it evolved through an acceptance and desire that inspired compromise and a tough conflict to overcome their own personal demons, in the hope of forging a future together. Jack battling a reluctance to relinquish control - too certain of his own point of view and a forged safety in self-reliance - and an inbred prejudice of the time that perceived the assumption in female fragility and underestimation, while, Pippa fought to master her tormenting anxiety and fear for her own safety. Ultimately bringing together two souls, cracked and broken by past trauma, as they slowly learned each other was the glue they needed to put themselves back together and move forward to a happier future.
Acculminating in the crafting of one fun package that I'd happily read again. With a host of subcharacters that are already so vividly imprinted in my mind I can't wait to see where their futures take them too...Jane and Dev and Lydia and Benedict. Marking this book for me as an exciting new series introduction and a well crafted tale that's been finely polished from the very first page to a very statisfying conclusion! Loved it!
HOW TO COURT A COVERT LADY was an exciting read that interweaved so many gems in its intricate fabric that I couldn't help but become entangled. Creating this well put together romance that unfolded and built from the mysteries and delicious personalities encased within the LCA - a covert club masquerading as the Ladies Charitable Association - to a clue hunting misadventure to find one of its members, Jack's missing sister, Lydia. As sparks flew and intrigue bubbled beneath their mutual attraction... between our secret encumbered leads, the perceptive covert master fencer, Pippa and steadfast Earl, Jack, from first collison.
Hartwell, a new but marvellous find for me, hooked me in instantly with her engaging writing style that pulled and thrilled with its exciting quick pace, witty banter and well defined, multifaceted characters that vividly resonated and jumped from the page.
Pippa and Jack, swirled with this delightfully compelling maelstrom of intriguing vulnerability and strength and had this engaging ability to look deeper, cut each other to the quick and gradually rebalance each others fears. That touched and played my emotions effortlessly as I laughed, swooned and thrummed with nervous tension as they struggled to desperately scratch out hints to uncovering Lydia's disappearance while attempting to fight their deep heady attraction... and thankfully failing spectacularly in all its intimate steamy yumminess. Reshaping their embarked on journey to one of self growth and reawakening. That shifted through Jack's blackmail of Pippa into helping him in the first place and this instabond born of electric connection and purpose, as it evolved through an acceptance and desire that inspired compromise and a tough conflict to overcome their own personal demons, in the hope of forging a future together. Jack battling a reluctance to relinquish control - too certain of his own point of view and a forged safety in self-reliance - and an inbred prejudice of the time that perceived the assumption in female fragility and underestimation, while, Pippa fought to master her tormenting anxiety and fear for her own safety. Ultimately bringing together two souls, cracked and broken by past trauma, as they slowly learned each other was the glue they needed to put themselves back together and move forward to a happier future.
Acculminating in the crafting of one fun package that I'd happily read again. With a host of subcharacters that are already so vividly imprinted in my mind I can't wait to see where their futures take them too...Jane and Dev and Lydia and Benedict. Marking this book for me as an exciting new series introduction and a well crafted tale that's been finely polished from the very first page to a very statisfying conclusion! Loved it!
January 18, 2023
I have read almost every book in this series. It is about a woman, Mrs. Dove-Lyon who is a widow who runs a gaming establishment with a brothel upstairs. She creates matches with couples by way of the groom losing a wager. The books are written by one if six different authors. I have not read one book that actually makes sense. I do not know why books keep being written in this series.
Some of the books are actually pretty good, except when they are manipulated to fit the series parameters. This book is no exception. Except for where the characters deal with the widow, it is a pretty good book.why could they not just be a marriage if convenience that moves into love? I like those. But no, we have to see this story manipulated.
The hero is a 42 year old bachelor that has lost two of the women he lived and planned to marry in horrific ways. One was in his twenties, just before their wedding, and he lost her to a vagrant who attacked her for her purse and stabbed her in the chest. He held her as she bled out. The second was in his thirties. They had both contracted an illness and she never recovered. She has been 3 mo this pregnant and two weeks before the wedding. He held her hand as she struggled to breath. He attended the fu oral instead of their wedding. Life has been so cruel.to this man. He resorted to anger and vices, and was known as the worst man in London.
The heroine is a 33 year old widow whose father lost the hand of her younger 19 year old sister in a card game. The heroine goes to Mrs. Dove-Lyon to offer herself for the bride and negotiates the hero to pay for her little sister's next two Seasons, but not give the money to her father. I still am not sure what the widow received except maybe more money from.the unsuspecting groom? Oh, and here is a good one. The heroine is rumored to have killed her first abusive husband. And she can't have children.
I think that this book had every cliche horrible thing that could happen, actually happen. I am.not sure if I liked it. I give it 3 stars because it kind of made sense. But as will all.the other books in this series, i would not recommend reading it. There was not enough positive things to want to share.
Some of the books are actually pretty good, except when they are manipulated to fit the series parameters. This book is no exception. Except for where the characters deal with the widow, it is a pretty good book.why could they not just be a marriage if convenience that moves into love? I like those. But no, we have to see this story manipulated.
The hero is a 42 year old bachelor that has lost two of the women he lived and planned to marry in horrific ways. One was in his twenties, just before their wedding, and he lost her to a vagrant who attacked her for her purse and stabbed her in the chest. He held her as she bled out. The second was in his thirties. They had both contracted an illness and she never recovered. She has been 3 mo this pregnant and two weeks before the wedding. He held her hand as she struggled to breath. He attended the fu oral instead of their wedding. Life has been so cruel.to this man. He resorted to anger and vices, and was known as the worst man in London.
The heroine is a 33 year old widow whose father lost the hand of her younger 19 year old sister in a card game. The heroine goes to Mrs. Dove-Lyon to offer herself for the bride and negotiates the hero to pay for her little sister's next two Seasons, but not give the money to her father. I still am not sure what the widow received except maybe more money from.the unsuspecting groom? Oh, and here is a good one. The heroine is rumored to have killed her first abusive husband. And she can't have children.
I think that this book had every cliche horrible thing that could happen, actually happen. I am.not sure if I liked it. I give it 3 stars because it kind of made sense. But as will all.the other books in this series, i would not recommend reading it. There was not enough positive things to want to share.
February 2, 2023
4.5 Stars
Pippa Chester witnessed a horrible crime. She’s spent years inside her home with the belief it was her only safe haven. Slowly, with the encouragement of her younger brother and her introduction to the Ladies Covert Academy, Pippa is learning how to protect herself from anyone who’d wish to harm her. With a year of frequent visits to the academy for secret fencing and knife throwing lessons, Pippa is a little less anxious about leaving home. When she bumps into the brother of another member of the LCA, she believes she’s doing a good deed. Once she introduces Jack Dashwood, Earl of Hartwick, to the benefactress of the LCA, she thinks her job is done. Jack Dashwood has other ideas.
When Jack finds out his sister, Lydia, never made it home after a visit to the academy, he is desperate to find her. After Pippa gets him a meeting with the benefactress, he doesn’t receive much help. In a panicked state, he decides to blackmail Pippa into helping him. She has to help Jack find Lydia or he will spill the true mission of the LCA.
Pippa and Jack go back and forth between lust and anger, all while falling in love. Jack feels tremendous guilt about falling for Pippa while his sister could be suffering or even dead. While Pippa doesn’t know Lydia well, she wants to help any way she can and protect the secrets of the LCA.
Pippa is a generous soul who has overcome so much grief and anxiety in her life. She blooms as Jack awakens the woman inside her. Jack’s deep love for his sister tugs at Pippa’s heartstrings. Jack’s world spins off its axis with Lydia’s disappearance and his rigid need for control is threatened. The bumpy journey the pair take puts their lives and futures in mortal danger.
There were times when I thought they had no way out, but thankfully, Hartwell gave us the happily ever after Jack and Pippa deserve. I can’t wait to read more of this series when Hartwell releases book two, Secrets of a Covert Lord, and book three, Winning the Covert Lady’s Heart, soon.
I received How to Court a Covert Lady for free. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Pippa Chester witnessed a horrible crime. She’s spent years inside her home with the belief it was her only safe haven. Slowly, with the encouragement of her younger brother and her introduction to the Ladies Covert Academy, Pippa is learning how to protect herself from anyone who’d wish to harm her. With a year of frequent visits to the academy for secret fencing and knife throwing lessons, Pippa is a little less anxious about leaving home. When she bumps into the brother of another member of the LCA, she believes she’s doing a good deed. Once she introduces Jack Dashwood, Earl of Hartwick, to the benefactress of the LCA, she thinks her job is done. Jack Dashwood has other ideas.
When Jack finds out his sister, Lydia, never made it home after a visit to the academy, he is desperate to find her. After Pippa gets him a meeting with the benefactress, he doesn’t receive much help. In a panicked state, he decides to blackmail Pippa into helping him. She has to help Jack find Lydia or he will spill the true mission of the LCA.
Pippa and Jack go back and forth between lust and anger, all while falling in love. Jack feels tremendous guilt about falling for Pippa while his sister could be suffering or even dead. While Pippa doesn’t know Lydia well, she wants to help any way she can and protect the secrets of the LCA.
Pippa is a generous soul who has overcome so much grief and anxiety in her life. She blooms as Jack awakens the woman inside her. Jack’s deep love for his sister tugs at Pippa’s heartstrings. Jack’s world spins off its axis with Lydia’s disappearance and his rigid need for control is threatened. The bumpy journey the pair take puts their lives and futures in mortal danger.
There were times when I thought they had no way out, but thankfully, Hartwell gave us the happily ever after Jack and Pippa deserve. I can’t wait to read more of this series when Hartwell releases book two, Secrets of a Covert Lord, and book three, Winning the Covert Lady’s Heart, soon.
I received How to Court a Covert Lady for free. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
May 10, 2024
In my opinion this book was incredibly beautiful. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It seemed so simple and almost cliche but after reading the authors note after I feel that's part of its charm. I guess I just wish that Paul had gotten to explain things to Anne before she would immediately agree to run home with him. Then again, maybe that's part of their spontaneous personalities, and I can assume Anne got her answers after the whole thing. I'll have to re-read this one day to fully understand the philosophical and anthropological parts. Maybe also it's just that I too am a nerd from a little southern town, but the way this book reads feels really personal. I really loved this book, and reading the authors note learning how much Chad Oliver loves it too makes me love it even more. Truly, I feel like I spent some quality time with the man, and I'd like to come back some time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 16, 2025
Chad Oliver continues to delight for me as an author. I was not familiar with him but now having read three of his books I can safely say I am a fan of his style. This one is deeply human (pun intended for those who have read this) and very contemplative; but somehow still manages to be a page turner. The character work and setting are excellent. It’s a sci fi that’s a bit more thinking and less action, but one that probes some great questions and gets us facing the situation of first contact in a more practical less romantic view; and it’s a wonderfully ambiguous but satisfying cocktail. I highly recommend this to anyone.
July 21, 2017
This is not your typical alien invasion story. Don't look for suspense here. Written by an anthropologist during the Cold War, this science fiction novel is a reflection on the nature of colonization. The opening is amusing: an anthropologist doing research on a small Texas town finds it a little too typical, then stumbles on a visit from the mother ship, learns the town is very civilized and not threatening, but still an alien colony. Now as the "savage," he has to decide to join up with the advanced civilization or not.
February 13, 2023
He has a terrible reputation since his two fiancees had died, the Earl of Pennington has been through so much heartache and is reluctant to meet anyone again. She is a widower living at home, her father just gambled her sister away. She takes her place.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon steps in and shows tough side. She gives them choices, but the end result is up to them. This is an emotional story. Its dark pasts, hurt, uncertainties. But it's about two wonderful people who need each other desperately. The story holds your attention from the bitter beginning straight through to the wonderfully end.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon steps in and shows tough side. She gives them choices, but the end result is up to them. This is an emotional story. Its dark pasts, hurt, uncertainties. But it's about two wonderful people who need each other desperately. The story holds your attention from the bitter beginning straight through to the wonderfully end.
November 15, 2018
Man!! It's a great premise and wouldn't you just love to be in that situation? Single, without commitments and invited by a superior race to join them. Reap all the benefits. Know all that you wish to study. Deemed worthy....
I just disagree with the ending. Certainly wouldn't have been my choice.
I just disagree with the ending. Certainly wouldn't have been my choice.
January 30, 2023
The Earl of Pennington has been through so much heartache and is reluctant to meet anyone again. Thongs get out of hand while gambling and he's going to marry. His wife isn't as docile as he had hoped and sparks fly. Ups and downs throughout this whole story. If you haven't read it...you should!
May 10, 2020
NICE BOOK.
August 30, 2025
A sci-fi love letter to home. To Austin.
December 24, 2011
Shadows in the Sun is an odd little book. The blurb on the back coupled with the cover art suggests the book is about an anthropologist, Paul Ellery, studying the relatively small Texan town of Jefferson Springs and gradually coming to the shocking realisation that every single one of the town's inhabitants is in fact an alien.
The first couple of chapters support this hypothesis pretty well, since they introduce an anthropologist, Paul Ellery, who is studying the relatively small Texan town of Jefferson Springs and who has gradually come to the shocking realisation that every single one of the town's inhabitants is in fact an alien. It reads like the book has started in media res, and I waited for quite a few of the book's scant pages for the flashbacks to start and to find out what aroused Paul Ellery's suspicions. But the flashbacks never come, the book simply starts quite late in Paul's tale, a few hours before he gets the ultimate proof to confirm his hypothesis.
The rest of the story is essentially built around the notion that the aliens—who are in fact humans, with Chad Oliver trying to sell the unlikely notion that Earth-like planets abound in the Milky Way, and on each one humans have evolved to be the dominant species—are willing to let Paul become a member of their society, and him having to choose between a suddenly worthless existence on Earth or an overwhelming and inevitably never satisfactory life as a citizen of the Greater Galactic Commonwealth. He agonises about the choice up until the final page at which point the author, having done a jolly good job of convincing the reader that neither choice is a good one, seems to have flipped a coin and picked one of the roads for his character with the vague suggestion that merely deciding one course over the other is sufficient for Paul's happiness. I was about as convinced by that line of reasoning as I was by the story in general.
The first couple of chapters support this hypothesis pretty well, since they introduce an anthropologist, Paul Ellery, who is studying the relatively small Texan town of Jefferson Springs and who has gradually come to the shocking realisation that every single one of the town's inhabitants is in fact an alien. It reads like the book has started in media res, and I waited for quite a few of the book's scant pages for the flashbacks to start and to find out what aroused Paul Ellery's suspicions. But the flashbacks never come, the book simply starts quite late in Paul's tale, a few hours before he gets the ultimate proof to confirm his hypothesis.
The rest of the story is essentially built around the notion that the aliens—who are in fact humans, with Chad Oliver trying to sell the unlikely notion that Earth-like planets abound in the Milky Way, and on each one humans have evolved to be the dominant species—are willing to let Paul become a member of their society, and him having to choose between a suddenly worthless existence on Earth or an overwhelming and inevitably never satisfactory life as a citizen of the Greater Galactic Commonwealth. He agonises about the choice up until the final page at which point the author, having done a jolly good job of convincing the reader that neither choice is a good one, seems to have flipped a coin and picked one of the roads for his character with the vague suggestion that merely deciding one course over the other is sufficient for Paul's happiness. I was about as convinced by that line of reasoning as I was by the story in general.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2016
Oliver's odd little novella is far from being a classic, but it is certainly more original than many more acclaimed sf stories. Anthropologist Ellery finds the small Texas town of Jefferson Springs is not all it should be. None of the residents have been there longer than 15 years, and all seem peculiarly ornery. They go through the motions of being alive, until Ellery discovers they have quite another kind of life. These are not invaders - they are colonising aliens, and upon discovery they invite Ellery to join them in a sort of reverse colonising process. This leads to a will he/won't he climax in which the protagonist defers to the author, who imposes a cop-out ending as a form of meta-narrative - Oliver's experience as an anthropologist is one of brooding pessimism, here disguised as getting the girl by not getting the galaxy.
February 19, 2016
I'm a fan of older science fiction from the pulp classics to science fiction of the 50s & 60s but I'm no fan of this book. I had to force myself to finish by skimming the second half of the book. It was a snoozer. The only interesting thing about reading it was to get an idea of rural life in Texas during the early 50s.
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May 8, 2019I have the german edition: Die vom anderen Stern
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