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Rule Golden/Double Meaning
As a newspaper publisher, Robert James Dahls found the news disconcerting; in fact, inexplicable. News items like two boxers simultaneously knocking each other out, prison guards sick and unable to guard the prisoners, policemen shooting fleeing culprits and collapsing themselves, battered wives with husbands suffering the same injuries that they inflicted.
Dahl catches wind of a large experimental facility that is being led by the U.S. Department of Defense. His suspicions coincide with the strange, beyond-coincidental behavior that he's been observing. For what's on the grounds of the facility is much more radical than anything that was claimed to be found in Roswell. Not just an alien but one that has a strange effect on the human race. Where the Golden Rule in Be done by as you do to others. How can we get along without conflict? What will happen to the human race? Dahl soon finds himself a fugitive helping a bizarre alien save or destroy the Earth!
Dahl catches wind of a large experimental facility that is being led by the U.S. Department of Defense. His suspicions coincide with the strange, beyond-coincidental behavior that he's been observing. For what's on the grounds of the facility is much more radical than anything that was claimed to be found in Roswell. Not just an alien but one that has a strange effect on the human race. Where the Golden Rule in Be done by as you do to others. How can we get along without conflict? What will happen to the human race? Dahl soon finds himself a fugitive helping a bizarre alien save or destroy the Earth!
- GenresScience Fiction
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 15, 1991
20 people want to read
About the author
Damon Knight
581 books97 followersDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 9, 2021
This is Tor Double #33, of a series of 36 double books published from 1988 to 1991 by Tor Books. It contains two novellas. Unlike most of the volumes in the series, this one is not bound tête-bêche (back-to-back and inverted). There is only one cover. In this case, both are by the same author.
Rule Golden, by Damon Knight (1954) **
This was originally published in the May 1954 issue of Science Fiction Adventures. It has been widely anthologized.
What if what we did unto others, was automatically done unto us? The government’s captive alien Aza-Kra seems to cause this to happen to everyone around him. Everything changes. It’s an interesting concept, but I found it really hard to relate to these sort of 1950s characters.
Double Meaning, by Damon Knight (1953) **
This novella was originally published in the January 1953 issue of Startling Stories. In 1965, it was re-published in an Ace Double under the title of The Rithian Terror, and then also stand-alone. In this Tor Double, it is restored to its original title and text.
The story is a futuristic thriller about Earth Empire security officer Thorne Spangler who needs to locate the last remaining Rithian spy. He enlists the aid of a repatriated colonial, who is not inclined to follow rules. It is a very typical 1950s pulp story.
Rule Golden, by Damon Knight (1954) **
This was originally published in the May 1954 issue of Science Fiction Adventures. It has been widely anthologized.
What if what we did unto others, was automatically done unto us? The government’s captive alien Aza-Kra seems to cause this to happen to everyone around him. Everything changes. It’s an interesting concept, but I found it really hard to relate to these sort of 1950s characters.
Double Meaning, by Damon Knight (1953) **
This novella was originally published in the January 1953 issue of Startling Stories. In 1965, it was re-published in an Ace Double under the title of The Rithian Terror, and then also stand-alone. In this Tor Double, it is restored to its original title and text.
The story is a futuristic thriller about Earth Empire security officer Thorne Spangler who needs to locate the last remaining Rithian spy. He enlists the aid of a repatriated colonial, who is not inclined to follow rules. It is a very typical 1950s pulp story.
November 19, 2017
Knight, who as an editor and writer had his hand in seemingly everything in science fiction in its heyday from the 1940s to the 1970s, deserves to be better remembered and kept in print. Even when reading his pulpiest fiction, I've always felt a kinship with his deeply intelligent and slightly pugnacious take on things; even when writing primarily for money, he always had a point to make about humankind's odd mix of cruelty and potential. "Rule Golden" is an expansion of his most famous short story, a consideration of what might happen if the Golden Rule were reversed: an alien comes to earth and releases a genetic virus that activates a kind of neurologic empathy, so that anyone who causes pain to another immediately feels the equivalent pain themselves. The implications for crime, government, and even diet are just a start.
"Double Meaning" is a particularly pulpy (and sometimes cringeworthy) thriller with an unusual linguistic premise, apparently included to pad the page count of the paperback reissue.
"Double Meaning" is a particularly pulpy (and sometimes cringeworthy) thriller with an unusual linguistic premise, apparently included to pad the page count of the paperback reissue.
October 9, 2017
The author's introduction was interesting; it explained the history of science fiction magazines and touched on racism and misogyny that the author noticed in the industry.
I think both stories could have been shortened considerably and I would have enjoyed them more.
Also, in Double Meaning there was a side story about an abusive relationship the main character had with his girlfriend that did not seem to fit in the story at all.
I read this while volunteering for bookshare.org. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have picked it.
I think both stories could have been shortened considerably and I would have enjoyed them more.
Also, in Double Meaning there was a side story about an abusive relationship the main character had with his girlfriend that did not seem to fit in the story at all.
I read this while volunteering for bookshare.org. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have picked it.
February 24, 2022
3.5 stars
June 26, 2009
"Double Meaning" is a decent aliens-among-us story with a not exactly stirring moral about bigotry.
"Rule Golden" I hated, though I may owe it another read. In it, an alien disperses a chemical that causes people to experience any pain they inflict on another, mandating vegetarianism, non-violence, etc. It seemed to me that this story didn't really tackle the obvious implications of the premise, moral and otherwise.
"Rule Golden" I hated, though I may owe it another read. In it, an alien disperses a chemical that causes people to experience any pain they inflict on another, mandating vegetarianism, non-violence, etc. It seemed to me that this story didn't really tackle the obvious implications of the premise, moral and otherwise.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews