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Command Performance
COMMAND PERFORMANCE (November 1952) was Miller’s second and final contribution to GALAXY and appeared less than two years after his first sale, SECRET OF THE DEATH DOME, to AMAZING STORIES. An uncomfortable speculation on the true nature and penalty of telepathy, it shows his characteristic thoroughness and depth and is in fact a story whose central theme (and conclusion) were appropriated in the decades to come by many writers. Its female protagonist, able to read the minds of others, has always felt herself to be solitary in her gift; she learns that she is not and the consequences of that knowledge are managed with a remorselessness which was always central to Miller’s work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1922-1997) was the author of the Hugo winning novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1960) generally regarded as one of the ten finest works to ever emerge from the genre. Like Joseph Heller, Miller was a WWII combat flier who was severely damaged by his horrific experiences; he became a journalist and published prolifically over the decade of the 1950’s, then went silent for his last forty years. (An uncompleted expensively contracted semi-sequel to A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ was finished off by Terry Bisson after Miller’s death and published unsuccessfully by Bantam Books.) Miller published approximately 40 magazine stories and the one novel in the 1950’s, some of the stories are regarded as monuments to the genre. His novella, THE DARFSTELLAR, published in ASTOUNDING’s January 1955 issue, won the Hugo as did CANTICLE half a decade later for best novel. Miller’s other contribution to GALAXY, CONDITIONALLY HUMAN, appeared nine months earlier than COMMAND PERFORMANCE and is regarded equally highly. Miller’s personal involvement with the science fiction community was embittering and disastrous; a well publicized affair with Judith Merril, then Frederik Pohl’s wife, wrecked her marriage and damaged his, and he abandoned any involvement with that community in the mid-fifties, living as a near recluse. Miller later committed suicide by gunshot.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Horace Gold led GALAXY magazine from its first issue dated October 1950 to science fiction’s most admired, widely circulated and influential magazine throughout its initial decade. Its legendary importance came from publication of full length novels, novellas and novelettes. GALAXY published nearly every giant in the science fiction field.
The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of GALAXY with new forewords by some of today’s best science fiction writers. The initial selections in alphabetical order include work by Ray Bradbury, Frederic Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Scheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Phillip Klass) and Kurt Vonnegut with new Forewords by Paul di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit GALAXY magazine and its founding editor Horace Gold.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1922-1997) was the author of the Hugo winning novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1960) generally regarded as one of the ten finest works to ever emerge from the genre. Like Joseph Heller, Miller was a WWII combat flier who was severely damaged by his horrific experiences; he became a journalist and published prolifically over the decade of the 1950’s, then went silent for his last forty years. (An uncompleted expensively contracted semi-sequel to A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ was finished off by Terry Bisson after Miller’s death and published unsuccessfully by Bantam Books.) Miller published approximately 40 magazine stories and the one novel in the 1950’s, some of the stories are regarded as monuments to the genre. His novella, THE DARFSTELLAR, published in ASTOUNDING’s January 1955 issue, won the Hugo as did CANTICLE half a decade later for best novel. Miller’s other contribution to GALAXY, CONDITIONALLY HUMAN, appeared nine months earlier than COMMAND PERFORMANCE and is regarded equally highly. Miller’s personal involvement with the science fiction community was embittering and disastrous; a well publicized affair with Judith Merril, then Frederik Pohl’s wife, wrecked her marriage and damaged his, and he abandoned any involvement with that community in the mid-fifties, living as a near recluse. Miller later committed suicide by gunshot.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Horace Gold led GALAXY magazine from its first issue dated October 1950 to science fiction’s most admired, widely circulated and influential magazine throughout its initial decade. Its legendary importance came from publication of full length novels, novellas and novelettes. GALAXY published nearly every giant in the science fiction field.
The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of GALAXY with new forewords by some of today’s best science fiction writers. The initial selections in alphabetical order include work by Ray Bradbury, Frederic Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Scheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Phillip Klass) and Kurt Vonnegut with new Forewords by Paul di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit GALAXY magazine and its founding editor Horace Gold.
- GenresScience Fiction
52 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1952
12 people want to read
About the author
Walter M. Miller Jr.
154 books980 followersFrom the Wikipedia article, "Walter M. Miller, Jr.":
Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Educated at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, he worked as an engineer. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a radioman and tail gunner, flying more than fifty bombing missions over Italy. He took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, which proved a traumatic experience for him. Joe Haldeman reported that Miller "had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for 30 years before it had a name".
After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism. He married Anna Louise Becker in 1945, and they had four children. For several months in 1953 he lived with science-fiction writer Judith Merril, ex-wife of Frederik Pohl and a noted science-fiction author in her own right.
Between 1951 and 1957, Miller published over three dozen science fiction short stories, winning a Hugo Award in 1955 for the story "The Darfsteller". He also wrote scripts for the television show Captain Video in 1953. Late in the 1950s, Miller assembled a novel from three closely related novellas he had published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955, 1956, and 1957. The novel, entitled A Canticle for Leibowitz, was published in 1959.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic (post-holocaust) novel revolving around the canonisation of Saint Leibowitz and is considered a masterpiece of the genre. It won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel is also a powerful meditation on the cycles of world history and Roman Catholicism as a force of stability during history's dark times.
After the success of A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller never published another new novel or story in his lifetime, although several compilations of Miller's earlier stories were issued in the 1960s and 1970s.
In Miller's later years, he became a recluse, avoiding contact with nearly everyone, including family members; he never allowed his literary agent, Don Congdon, to meet him. According to science fiction writer Terry Bisson, Miller struggled with depression during his later years, but had managed to nearly complete a 600-page manuscript for the sequel to Canticle before taking his own life with a gun in January 1996, shortly after his wife's death. The sequel, titled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was completed by Bisson and published in 1997.
Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Educated at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, he worked as an engineer. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a radioman and tail gunner, flying more than fifty bombing missions over Italy. He took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, which proved a traumatic experience for him. Joe Haldeman reported that Miller "had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for 30 years before it had a name".
After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism. He married Anna Louise Becker in 1945, and they had four children. For several months in 1953 he lived with science-fiction writer Judith Merril, ex-wife of Frederik Pohl and a noted science-fiction author in her own right.
Between 1951 and 1957, Miller published over three dozen science fiction short stories, winning a Hugo Award in 1955 for the story "The Darfsteller". He also wrote scripts for the television show Captain Video in 1953. Late in the 1950s, Miller assembled a novel from three closely related novellas he had published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955, 1956, and 1957. The novel, entitled A Canticle for Leibowitz, was published in 1959.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic (post-holocaust) novel revolving around the canonisation of Saint Leibowitz and is considered a masterpiece of the genre. It won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel is also a powerful meditation on the cycles of world history and Roman Catholicism as a force of stability during history's dark times.
After the success of A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller never published another new novel or story in his lifetime, although several compilations of Miller's earlier stories were issued in the 1960s and 1970s.
In Miller's later years, he became a recluse, avoiding contact with nearly everyone, including family members; he never allowed his literary agent, Don Congdon, to meet him. According to science fiction writer Terry Bisson, Miller struggled with depression during his later years, but had managed to nearly complete a 600-page manuscript for the sequel to Canticle before taking his own life with a gun in January 1996, shortly after his wife's death. The sequel, titled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was completed by Bisson and published in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 24, 2024
This novelette was riveting. It is one of those exceptional unforgettable stories that you simply never get out of your head. You'll be thinking of some random topic, and aspects of the story will start creeping back into your mind. "Which story was it that had the woman in her backyard?" Why was she terrified at some point? What was her connection with the other person in the story? Why is it important that her yard had a wall? What does the story have to do with dancing? Or walking?
Trust me - you really want to track down this story -and read it.
Sometimes there's no point in rereading a story. Then there's rare stories like this one.
Trust me - you really want to track down this story -and read it.
Sometimes there's no point in rereading a story. Then there's rare stories like this one.
October 16, 2020
Neat short sci fi story about a latent telepath discovered by another, more experienced one. Creepy.
January 14, 2021
A woman with ESP finds herself being stalked by a fellow telepath.
Miller's story is strangely more relevant in the cyber age than it was when written, as someone used their talents to mine for information other people can't find out.
Miller's story is strangely more relevant in the cyber age than it was when written, as someone used their talents to mine for information other people can't find out.
March 21, 2012
This story held my interest. It read like a draft or brainstorming, but the plot held together, and the devices used titillated and horrified.
A man with telepathic powers discovers another telepathic person--this one a young, beautiful woman. He seeks her out and delivers to her an argument that they are evolutionary mutants and owe it to humanity to propogate their genes. His attempt at fulfilling his "evolutionary" desire turns out... poorly for him.
Some fun thoughts to reflect on after the story are exactly how much of a creep or how much in the right the antagonist is, and to stretch the story to its limits about how the plot points affect the protagonist. A good, short read, just the right length for a commute.
A man with telepathic powers discovers another telepathic person--this one a young, beautiful woman. He seeks her out and delivers to her an argument that they are evolutionary mutants and owe it to humanity to propogate their genes. His attempt at fulfilling his "evolutionary" desire turns out... poorly for him.
Some fun thoughts to reflect on after the story are exactly how much of a creep or how much in the right the antagonist is, and to stretch the story to its limits about how the plot points affect the protagonist. A good, short read, just the right length for a commute.
January 10, 2017
Classic story about the perils - and the loneliness - of being a telepath.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews