Earthbound

by Lester del Rey

Short science fiction story

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction

Unknown Binding

About the author

Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey is especially famous for his juvenile novels such as those which are part of the Winston Science Fiction series, and for Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books edited by Lester del Rey and his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Also published as:
Philip St. John
Eric van Lihn
Erik van Lhin
Kenneth Wright
Edson McCann (with Frederik Pohl)

Reviews

[Adam Leon · Rating 5 out of 5]

To provide some background information into the context I had into this short story: I read "Earthbound" from a collection of Lester del Rey's works compiled into two distinct volumes. "Earthbound" was one of the opening shorts apart of the second volume, and so, having read through the entirety of the first volume, my expectations for del Rey was understandably low. Now, Lester del Rey has made some pretty amazing stories, but when it comes to meeting a "writing quota" every month over the years just to make end's meet, there are more than enough stories that pile up that are so stereotypical and overly forced that "del Rey" shorts have become synonymous in my mind with "Dime Spacers" (Short, often trope-filled stories you used to be able to buy for a dime). Maybe this is why I've given Earthbound a perfect five-star rating, since my expectations were set so low in the first place for a story only several pages in length (I believe it's less than two pages), but I would like to believe that this background context played very little in my 5-star rating.

"Earthbound" is an interesting modernization of an ancient tale.

When I was young, I was told about the story of the Wandering Jew (as all young jewish people probably have heard a million times). According to the story, when Jesus Christ was bearing his cross to be crucified, a jewish man tripped him and laughed at the dying Christ. When Jesus stood back up, he turned to the man, pointed at him, and said "For I have struggled to walk, you shall know that struggle and spend the rest of eternity walking the Earth until the end of time." Or something equally dramatic and poetic. The story ends that the man was given immortality and forced to travel, never able to stay in one spot for too long before something bad would happen. Of course, the story of the Wandering Jew today has become an anti-semitic remark (used as a way to scare kids of Jewish people or mock the lack of a homeland for so many generations). I personally don't believe that Lester del Rey was using it for its anti-semitic purposes whatsoever so you should also disregard the idea of this being an "aged racist" example of science-fiction.

What's so interesting about "Earthbound" is that Del Rey takes the "Wandering Jew" story and adds another spin to the torment of the Wandering Jew in the modern day. But this requires me to summarize the story.

A captain comes back to Earth in his ship, he meets an old man who tells him that he's never left Earth. The captain asks how that is possible since everyone's left Earth at least once in their life (showing that space travel is cheap, affordable and necessary, and that everyone, in some way, has treated Earth as a backwater ready to be left behind and forgotten). The old man describes how each time he's tried to leave, something terrible happened. The ship blew up, crew got sick, engines had a fault etc. The captain then tells the old man they'll take his ship and the old man says he can't, that he's cursed. As the captain is dragging the old man, he hears the old man whisper a name. The captain recognizes the name and begins running in fear. The name was the name of the Wandering Jew.

The interesting part of "Earthbound" is that the punishment of "Walking the Earth forever" is no longer about the suffering of immortality and not having a home, in the age of space. It then becomes an imprisonment to the planet Earth forever, long after the planet has been moved on and forgotten. Even moreso, every Jew is told the "Wandering Jew" story with versions of evil magic, demonic powers, curses, or other frightening aspects added onto the "Wandering Jew" to make any jewish boy or girl scared of encountering this "Boogeyman". Although the captain runs upon hearing the name (showing that he is also aware of these scary stories), Del Rey makes it apparent that rather than being a monster, the Wandering Jew is very much just a tortured and tormented old man, no harm to anyone.

It's for these reasons
- Modernization of an ancient Tale
- Exploration of a Theme in an unexpected way
- Interesting story filled with mystery and a chilling climax
- All in less than 3 pages

That I give this story 5/5 stars.

I can understand many others giving it far less however as the story fails to explain the "Wandering Jew" and so those that miss the reference entirely probably wouldn't understand the story.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

A flash SF piece that degrades to fantasy in its ending. Asimov’s blurb for this story, from the collection 100 Microcosmic Tales, is the most apt summation: “There’s a limit to wandering…”

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars