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The Wanderer

Fritz Leiber
Hugo Award, 1965

Vast scope but little depth. Numerous characters but none developed enough to feel much emotional connection. Quite imaginative but story-line much less than gripping.

Like Alfred Bester's earlier classic, The Stars My Destination, The Wanderer takes as a theme Blake's poem, "Tyger, tyger burning bright . . ." But while Bester teems with fascinating episodes, Leiber seldom rises above a level of dull boredom.

Leiber's previous Hugo winner, The Big Time, focused more and developed with depth a particular theme. Here though, he spread the ideas thin and took on too much: "...molecules on which were etched the total knowledge of races and the histories of worlds. All Earth's thought and culture...would easily fit into just one of the tiny drawers." The drawers may be full but the overall book was too empty.

And also too pessimistic: "Intelligent life spreads faster than the plague. And science grows more uncontrollably than cancer." It's an image though that could make help people see the seriousness of over-population.

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