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Short Visit to Ergon
Fine in very good dust jacket (tape reinforcement to dj at ends of spines.) Hardcover first edition - New Exposition Press,, 1982.. Hardcover first edition -. Fine in very good dust jacket (tape reinforcement to dj at ends of spines.). First American edition. First hard cover edition of this 'eutopian' novel originally published in Canada in 1971 in softcover only. Describes in detail life on a pollution-free, peaceful planet, with incredible technology. 181 pp.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1982
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July 12, 2025
So, I don't know how I feel about this book.
The concept is simple: main male character named Ernie Chrisman wakes up on the planet Ergon after his ship malfunctioned. His co-pilot Bill (a black character) died in the process cause they ran out of oxygen.
I mention that Bill is black because, as this was written in 1971, a slur was used to describe him. There are also sexist undertones throughout the book: the main character has a fiancee back on Earth and he occasionally thinks about how he desires to go back to her so bad, while Ernie is also gushing over this other female alien character.
And by alien character, I mean the people of Ergon are human! There were so many things the author could've done to make these aliens interesting. Only one character, the doctor, has an interesting psychic ability to read MC's mind.
The book is short, 180 pages. So perhaps that's why there wasn't a lot of time developing this. I'll say that my favorite part was some of the metaphysical dialogue throughout, simply because I'm into spirituality and they were implying that the universe is alive (which is what I believe). There's an interesting conversation about the human experience being limited by matter, and that we can transcend into higher planes by just using our mind.
Like I said, the Ergonians are/look human, with mostly human names, and their society is still structured like on Earth, but with some differences, like the work week for someone who wants to make minimum wage to afford basic necessities only needs to work 2 days out of the week. They also live several hundred years.
The main conflict/antagonist is a young man who hates that fact that some people on Ergon don't want to work, and that he doesn't think that's fair. So he's trying to create a revolution to change things (this always struck me as a weak argument for his cause).
Anyway, this antagonist ends up killing the beauty that Ernie liked and steals the ship that was supposed to bring Ernie back to Earth. The antagonist dies when he hits the Earth ocean cause he didn't know how to control the ship.
The book ends with the main character finally arriving on Earth. His trip to Ergon was around 3 weeks, and there's no implication regarding space time dilation. It's also unclear how far away Ergon is, because it took Ernie 10 days to get to another solar system. It's hard to know when the action takes place, whether contemporary to the author, or later in the future.
Like I said, I don't know how I feel about this book. I rolled my eyes every time the MC was mentioning his fiancee back home because there was nothing described about her or their relationship to make me root for Ernie. And some of the sexist comments throughout really annoyed me (female creatures being irrational and emotional, like stfu).
It's like the book is trying to be an imperfect utopia (eutopia?) like Le Guin's The Dispossessed, but it falls short of that.
Overall, the novella discusses some interesting concepts (how to better organize society to eliminate poverty and crime, and how to expand the human mind). But it's not my favorite. It makes for a semi-good piece of Canadian sci-fi literature from the 20th century.
Edit July 12, 2025. On a second reread, I thought the book made more sense and I read it more as a commentary than the author's own biases
The concept is simple: main male character named Ernie Chrisman wakes up on the planet Ergon after his ship malfunctioned. His co-pilot Bill (a black character) died in the process cause they ran out of oxygen.
I mention that Bill is black because, as this was written in 1971, a slur was used to describe him. There are also sexist undertones throughout the book: the main character has a fiancee back on Earth and he occasionally thinks about how he desires to go back to her so bad, while Ernie is also gushing over this other female alien character.
And by alien character, I mean the people of Ergon are human! There were so many things the author could've done to make these aliens interesting. Only one character, the doctor, has an interesting psychic ability to read MC's mind.
The book is short, 180 pages. So perhaps that's why there wasn't a lot of time developing this. I'll say that my favorite part was some of the metaphysical dialogue throughout, simply because I'm into spirituality and they were implying that the universe is alive (which is what I believe). There's an interesting conversation about the human experience being limited by matter, and that we can transcend into higher planes by just using our mind.
Like I said, the Ergonians are/look human, with mostly human names, and their society is still structured like on Earth, but with some differences, like the work week for someone who wants to make minimum wage to afford basic necessities only needs to work 2 days out of the week. They also live several hundred years.
The main conflict/antagonist is a young man who hates that fact that some people on Ergon don't want to work, and that he doesn't think that's fair. So he's trying to create a revolution to change things (this always struck me as a weak argument for his cause).
Anyway, this antagonist ends up killing the beauty that Ernie liked and steals the ship that was supposed to bring Ernie back to Earth. The antagonist dies when he hits the Earth ocean cause he didn't know how to control the ship.
The book ends with the main character finally arriving on Earth. His trip to Ergon was around 3 weeks, and there's no implication regarding space time dilation. It's also unclear how far away Ergon is, because it took Ernie 10 days to get to another solar system. It's hard to know when the action takes place, whether contemporary to the author, or later in the future.
Like I said, I don't know how I feel about this book. I rolled my eyes every time the MC was mentioning his fiancee back home because there was nothing described about her or their relationship to make me root for Ernie. And some of the sexist comments throughout really annoyed me (female creatures being irrational and emotional, like stfu).
It's like the book is trying to be an imperfect utopia (eutopia?) like Le Guin's The Dispossessed, but it falls short of that.
Overall, the novella discusses some interesting concepts (how to better organize society to eliminate poverty and crime, and how to expand the human mind). But it's not my favorite. It makes for a semi-good piece of Canadian sci-fi literature from the 20th century.
Edit July 12, 2025. On a second reread, I thought the book made more sense and I read it more as a commentary than the author's own biases
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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