The Singing: A Fable About What Makes Us Human

by Theron Raines

This slim novel, by a well-known New York literary agent, is both disarming and rather irritating. Though sweet-natured and pleasantly written, it suffers from overweening ambition and its proportions are all wrong. The heroine, Mary Alice, a nice girl who works, somewhat improbably, in a cutthroat New York ad agency, meets Forrest, a visitor from Mars, when he crash-lands his flying saucer atop the Guggenheim Museum. Mary Alice is looking for Mr. Right, and Forrest is looking to implant Martian seed in an earthling; the makings, clearly, of what could be an engaging adult fairy tale. However, Raines becomes so bogged down in the creation of a creaky and over-familiar Martian history of super-consciousness -- devoting to it what seems like endless pages -- that the reader longs to return to Mary Alice and Forrest and their otherworldly problems. In the end, the story is wrapped up glibly, and the reader, who has been taught during the narrative to be critical of our world and its ways, is left with a stirring peroration about the glories of Earth. Both romance readers and science fiction buffs are likely to feel there's too much of what they don't want here. (Publishers Weekly)

163 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story that starts out as science fiction, then develops into lessons in philosophy, human anatomy, human history, and myth. I'd never heard of this author before, but I'm willing to bet he's a redhead with multiple college degrees (from Columbia and Oxford according to the blurb on the end flap). Although the focus begins with Mary Alice, a young, red-haired career woman in New York, it soon moves to the main character, one of four male, redheaded Martians whose ship landed on top of the Guggenheim Museum, one of which - Forest - meets, befriends, and eventually marries Mary Alice. The reader is led to see humanity through the eyes - the mindstream - of this alien. People who believe this planet was originally "seeded" by aliens will enjoy the myth that Forest conveys to Mary Alice to pass on to their unborn son, before he joins the others to return to Mars. I got the impression that this male was never able to grasp the concept of love, but had selected Mary Alice to be a vessel for his progeny. One philosophical comment caught my attention: Humans only knew life with a limit, life with a little fence around it, life canceled by the absurd invalidation of death. How many of us are going through life, day-by-day, just waiting for that final moment?

[Rebecca Guest-Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and beautiful science fiction for the "not-so-into-dwarves and cyborgs" reader. It is a love story, but beyond that defies classification or description.

[Lisa]

The Singing: A Fable About What Makes Us Human by Raines, Theron by Theron Raines (1988)

[Liz]

Such a great book, with a unique and lovely perspective on life. A book I will definitely be reading over again!