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Spaced Out: Three Novels of Tomorrow
Rare Book
493 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2008
About the author
Judith Merril
171 books48 followersJosephine Juliet Grossman
aka Cyril Judd (with C.M. Kornbluth)
Judith Josephine Grossman (Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1923 - Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist.
Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies.
aka Cyril Judd (with C.M. Kornbluth)
Judith Josephine Grossman (Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1923 - Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist.
Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 9, 2014
I've already read Shadow on the Hearth a number of times before, but I hadn't read the two collaborations with Kornbluth. The initial novel, Gunner Cade, wasn't very impressive to me. I could see what the authors were trying to do with the post-apocalyptic setting, but social structures and the language of the novel just felt awkward, rather than alien. In addition, the novel jolted from point to point without a lot of internal logic. It just didn't feel very well plotted, despite it's attempt at a anti-colonial narrative. The novel also lacked the proto-feminist voice that can be found in Merril's other work.
Outpost Mars felt like a more conventional Merril narrative with its emphasis on the everyday life of forming a Mars colony, with a corporate critique that ties into a lot of Kornbluth's work. The mystery of the novel didn't work very well, but the details of adjusting to life on Mars made it worth the read.
Shadow on the Hearth is the most significant novel in the collection, and is probably one of the strongest examples of domestic science fiction from the era. The novel explores the possible outcome of an atomic attack on the United States, and perhaps more significantly, provides a sharp critique of the rise of the cold war security apparatus. Using the structures of the domestic melodrama, the narrative explores the ways that average families would need to adjust in response to such an attack. Despite fairly broad characters, it does provide an interesting exploration of everyday life in such a situation, and has a fairly strong feminist critique contained within it.
Outpost Mars felt like a more conventional Merril narrative with its emphasis on the everyday life of forming a Mars colony, with a corporate critique that ties into a lot of Kornbluth's work. The mystery of the novel didn't work very well, but the details of adjusting to life on Mars made it worth the read.
Shadow on the Hearth is the most significant novel in the collection, and is probably one of the strongest examples of domestic science fiction from the era. The novel explores the possible outcome of an atomic attack on the United States, and perhaps more significantly, provides a sharp critique of the rise of the cold war security apparatus. Using the structures of the domestic melodrama, the narrative explores the ways that average families would need to adjust in response to such an attack. Despite fairly broad characters, it does provide an interesting exploration of everyday life in such a situation, and has a fairly strong feminist critique contained within it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review