The Wanderer

Sometimes we forget just how long the global disaster story has existed. You know the kind –the stories of individuals are told in front of the backdrop “the world is coming to an end!” It can really be traced all the way back to the beginning of science fiction (wherever you want to mark that start).) And it is a staple, its popularity ebbing and flowing just as any trend. But I think that, because books are so much longer now (particularly science fiction books), many people fall into the trap of thinking it has only now become really popular.

I was reminded of this as I read Leiber’s book, first published in 1964. A cataclysmic disaster befalls human kind and we watch its impact on the lives of the people scattered throughout show more the globe. Fifty years ago and this type of story was a staple.

These types of stories can be fun, they can be tedious, they can run the same gamut of possibilities as any novel. However, this one has two things going for it. The first is that it was written by Fritz Leiber. That should be enough right there. However, the other thing going for it is that Leiber has based this disaster on a very strange but potentially scientifically accurate scenario. Sure, it’s a little far-fetched to think that a planet can appear out of nowhere next to the moon. But Leiber has done his homework (as the greats always do) and makes us believe, with a mix of verisimilitude and science, that this could really be happening.

This is a reminder of why some of us have not “outgrown” science fiction – grand experiences told within the human experience.

After some background into the lives of the people we will be following, the novel dives into its strange premise. A planet appears next to the moon. It has a disastrous impact on the moon as the planet begins sucking pieces of the moon into the planet’s gravity field. And, of course, that much extra mass out there has an effect on the earth – earthquakes, weather, and, of course, huge tides.

Through the travails of various individuals (including one who is located on the moon), we see the impacts of these disasters. Many of these people don’t make it to the end of the book, but our main protagonists do. And, as many of these books do, this one ends with a promise that the human spirit will prevail.

Okay, that last sentence is unfair. It makes it seem that the book is trite. And that is not the case. As I’ve noted, Leiber is a craftsman and does his job well in this book.

However, there are a few quibbles. First, there are a couple of sex scenes (60s sex scenes – don’t worry) that really stink. They should be expurgated in all future editions. I also felt the introduction of the aliens (whoops, kind of a spoiler) and that important plot point wasn’t handled well. When it first occurred, I got very upset about its inclusion and, while I eventually got used to it and it began to work, at first I just wanted to get back to the other parts of the story. In addition, some of the alien sections didn’t gibe well. Why two such completely different responses from two aliens? Why should we shift from thinking of them as bad guys to victims?

And finally, because the book isn’t a 600-page extravaganza (the type we seem to have fallen in love with), there isn’t much time available to deeply explore the lives of anyone outside of the three major protagonists. Most of the others are fleshed out as more than cardboard, but they are pure supporting characters that appear to be put in to show the rest of the world and break up the main story.

But all that being said, the book is good. And it is fun to read. Were it written today, it would probably have to be a trilogy (or tetralogy or whatever length someone like George R. R. Martin is going for.) There would be deep dives into all of the ancillary characters and numbing pages of exposition. Yes, I might have wanted to see more than we were given, but I am not convinced such an expansion would have made this a better book.

Ultimately, I am happy with what we have…and satisfied that nothing more really need be added. show less

Winner of the Hugo Award in 1965, in a shortlist which included Cordwainer Smith, Edgar Pangborn and John Brunner. The Smith read like half a novel, I really didn’t like the Pangborn, and I have the Brunner on the TBR. Even so, I’m not convinced The Wanderer was the best of the four.

A strange planet appears suddenly - from hyperspace, it is theorised - in the Solar System, just outside the orbit of the Moon. Its presence causes earthquakes and tidal waves, and rips the Moon apart. The planet, named the Wanderer, proves to be actually destroying the Moon for fuel. Because it’s populated by thousands of alien races, and they’re on the run. The universe is packed with life - none of it visible from Earth, for, er, reasons - and show more it’s ruled by a government which resists change and adventurism, and the Wanderer’s dwellers are free spirits, gallivanting about the universe in search of, well, adventure.

The story is told through short sections from a wide cast of characters, all American except for a handful of non-US ones. There’s a German scientist, who appears twice and comes across like a cartoon Nazi; and a pair of drunken British writers (one Welsh, one English), who are caricatures, not characters. They also live in a UK that doesn’t exist, where people eat “sausage-and-mashed” rather than sausages and mash.

All the time I was reading the book, I was trying to figure out when it was set. The US has a base on the Moon, and the USSR a mission on Mars… But the KKK is running around openly in Florida (there are several uses of the n-word and some really offensive racism), the English character remembers a bombing raid as a child, a man in the US claims to be the perpetrator of the Black Dahlia murder (from 1947), and South Africa still has apartheid. So, probably early Sixties, then. (Despite the moonbase and Mars.)

I’m told Leiber’s technique of using multiple viewpoints was something new in science fiction. Certainly it’s a technique more associated with techno-thrillers and the like, but they didn’t begin to appear until later. To be honest, most of the viewpoints don’t actually add anything - there’s a group of UFO nuts in California who explain what’s happening in the first half of the novel, and two Americans independently kidnapped by the aliens who have the second half of the novel explained to them. The rest are, well, not even local colour.

Hard to believe The Wanderer was the best science fiction novel published in 1964. show less

As the epigraphs and some of the early dialogue in the novel makes clear, this is an attempt to take the space opera concept of planets that can move through interstellar space (as seen in, for example "Doc" Smith's Lensman novels) and apply some real-world logic to it. If a mobile planet appeared in Earth's solar system, what would be the result? The book unfolds like a disaster movie, following a number of parallel plotlines about different people dealing with effects like the break-up of the moon and some incredibly high and low tides.

I was very into it at first, but the more I read it, the less interested I was; at 346 pages (in my Gollancz edition, at least), the book is just too long proportional to the amount of interesting show more things that happen. Leiber reminds me of his contemporary Clifford Simak, good at both mood and character, but it felt like not much was actually happening. Groups of people very slowly make it from point A to point B. And it just keeps going on and on and on. The beginning of the book, as the disaster begins to unfold, it utterly captivating, but having grabbed you, Leiber assumes you will continue to be captivated by the same thing slowly unspooling for hundreds of pages. Probably could have been a cracker of a novella, but my least favorite of the seven Hugo-winning novels I've read over the last few years, except for The Forever Machine. show less

The Wanderer is not not a good book by any means, but it's fun enough disaster fiction and cosmological speculation, if you can overlook some real groaners in the writing.

The story follows a cast of dozens as a garishly decorated planet appears from hyperspace near the orbit of the moon. While at first people stare in wonder at their new purple and gold neighbor, wonder turns to horror as the 80-fold increased gravity of the Wanderer shreds the moon and starts a series of earthquakes, tsunamis, super-tides, volcanoes, and immense storms all over the Earth. Infrastructure, both physical and social, collapses under the immense weight of the unnatural disaster, as the mostly littoral human species flees to any high ground. There are scenes show more of destruction to rival a Roland Emmerich movie, and one advantage of the large cast is that Leiber can kill some to show he's serious.

Unfortunately, those deaths don't come soon enough, and the basic problem with the book is that it's mostly people in different places reacting to the same events in the same way. The only truly novel situations are two humans rescued/kipnapped by the aliens of the Wanderer. The planet is an artificial battlestation, designed for speed and escape in hyperspace, and crewed by rebels against a stultifying immortal galactic government that seeks to remember as much as possible against the heat-death of the universe. That is a grand idea, but one that appears much too late in the story, and presented in a giant expository monologue by a sexy alien catlady. The A plot of the book follows a group of 'Saucer Students', who happened to be attending a lecture on UFOs when the Wanderer appeared, trying to get an alien Momentum Gun to Vandenberg AFB and the world's best physicist. Though they pass for main characters, they're easily the most boring part of the book. While everybody is cardboard, the other characters are more brightly painted.

So about those groaners: Pointless sex and sadism, racial stereotypes, the hilariously dated 'weed-brothers' wandering Manhattan high on the devil dope while the world ends. This book is also panders to SF fans like crazy: all the smart people drop Heinlein and E.E. 'Doc' Smith references when discussing alien phenomena. I've read worse books, but I've also read better. show less

I picked up this novel as part of my 2025 goal to read 10 Hugo award winners. The Wanderer
by Fritz Leiber won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1965. Leiber had previously won the Hugo for his novel "The Big Time" - a novel that I hadn't read.

The novel weaves together a few SF themes: the disaster novel and first contact. The disaster novel aspect is caused by waves and tidal activity dramatically changing all over the Earth. These changes are caused by the gravitation effects of "the Wanderer" - a planet sized space ship that appears near the Earth. I liked the First Contact elements of the story even more. This novel just might be the first time where a cat-style alien appears!

The writing is also a bit of a love letter to SF fans. We show more have lines like this - In a situation like this, science fiction is our only guide. There are also periodic references to classic SF authors and characters sprinkled throughout the text. It was fun to see these easter eggs in the text.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. However, it is striking to report that it took me about 11 days to finish a 318 page novel. That pace is partly due to being busy with other activities. However, I'd also describe this novel as taking a rather slow pace. The first third or so of the novel was so slow that I briefly considered abandoning the book. Fortunately, the last half to last third of the novel was excellent and made it all worthwhile.

Aside from the points above, this novel felt very 1960s. There was drugs, racial tensions, the Space Race between the USA and USSR and more. There is also an interesting exploration of the conflict between authority and rebellion here. The 1960s quality of the story felt charming in some ways and jarring in other ways. show less

The Wanderer first came out in 1964. It was probably considered smutty back then. Now, it's almost tame. The story follows what happens to persons in various parts of the world when a planet-sized object appears near our moon.

The American characters range from scientists to stoners. The non-American characters also range in occupation. The Wanderer (the name given to the object), has a catastrophic influence on the tides and the weather. I won't go so far as to say Earth's population is drastically reduced, but reduced it definitely is.

Mr. Leiber jumps from the adventure of one character or group of characters, coming back to them to let us know how they're doing. Not everyone survives.

There will be some use of the N word, mostly from show more white bigots against a group of African-Americans traveling with their rich, old, sick white employer. No, he doesn't regain consciousness only to save the day with a few well-chosen words during all of their adventures, although white supremacists would hate one of his remarks. One bigot's remarks about college-educated N-words and science was particularly offensive, but Barbara was right and he was wrong.

I was offended by the fact that the drunk fares better than the stoners, though both provide cautionary tales about needing to be able to think clearly when disaster strikes. (Some of the humor is of the gallows variety. Some I didn't find funny.)

The astronaut gets his name on the back of the book, but aside from using the memory of one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books to save his life and an interesting tour of the Wanderer, his best friend, Paul, gets more time. I found Paul's interactions with a lovely alien cat lady one of the best parts of the book.

Mr. Leiber even provides a possible solution to a famous unsolved murder during one of the segments following a group of flying saucer students.

Because I watch the science channel, I can't be as optimistic about the book's end as the author was.

Dog lovers: there's a German shepherd named Ragnarok.
Cat lovers: I'm not sure how her name is spelled, but there's a dear cat named Meow. show less

1965 Winner of the Hugo Award.

Years before furry was popular, there was The Wanderer. Years before Lucifer's Hammer, there was The Wanderer. Years before it was popular go epic numbers of scientists and normals oohing and awing over BDO's entering the Earth's orbit... oh wait, no that's pretty much a standard of SF.

Seriously, aside from the times, which may or may not let you guys forgive the casual references to casual racism, sexism, and the oddly frank depiction of a lesbian woman deciding right before she drowns that she wants to have sex with the misogynic man as they both drown and wanting to strangle him to death before the water does the job, the novel really is a quick and fun dance around the tidal effects of the earth getting show more a new moon by way of HYPERSPACE.

It really was pretty neat, but let's put it in context. Stranger in a Strange land came out three years before, so free love is getting into the swing of things, and this novel is sandwiched between Way Station and Dune/This Immortal. It really isn't much of a surprise, being right dab in the middle of the sixties, that we've got almost beach scenes, Science Science Science, awkward characters named KKK, and kitty-aliens. MEOW.

And don't forget Counter Culture! Those darn Wanderers. Are they Beatniks? Are they the Youth Scene? Are they running from Mommy or Daddy? Why YES! Their tie-die bus has enough living area to hold 14 thousand earth surfaces, too, and it's full of wild types. Quick! Here come the coppers! And here's the oddest thing I've read in any novel for quite some time: "Have you ever masturbated a lower life form?"

I joke! I joke! (Or do I?)

There's actually a lot of death and pathos. It's also pretty fun for all its faults. It's easier to read in a few ways than [b:Lucifer's Hammer|218467|Lucifer's Hammer|Larry Niven|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388268115s/218467.jpg|1842237] and has easier to consume characters, but both works have very different messages. The level of destruction is much less than in Niven and Pournelle's work that came out 13 years later, but I have to wonder if each is merely a product of its age. Still, it's hard not to see the direct line of influence.

MEOW! Dirty monkey. show less