The Wanderer

I think Leiber is more well known for a certain fantasy series involving a pair of thieves than his SF work, although he has done some interesting tales. I wasn't even aware that this story existed, let alone that it had won a Hugo award, until they reissued it some years back. And for its time it must have been groundbreaking, a big globe-spanning disaster novel in the style that people like Niven and Pournelle would eventually make seem effortless. Here, disaster arrives when out of nowhere a giant mobile planet shifts out of hyperspace and into the solar system, presumably to refuel. It takes the moon apart and its very presence alone starts to throw off gravity and tides, causing matters on the ground to go, at best, slightly awry. The bulk of the narrative is following a scattered cast of people as they try to cope with the entire planet falling apart, all while this huge shape just hangs in the sky, seemingly watching over all of it. In theory, this book should work out perfectly, the multiple plots and varied cast keep things moving swiftly, there's a certain sense of helplessness at play because nobody can do anything about anything . . . and yet it's not without its flaws. A good portion of the cast you just don't care about and really aren't that exciting . . . I point specifically to the hippie-type characters smoking you-know-what and whatever is going on with the old man and his companions. Also, some characters seemed to be killed rather detachedly, before you even get to really know them it's "Oh, by the way, now they're dead" which tends to lessen whatever dramatic impact he was shooting for. The biggest problem I had with the book was probably the roving planet itself . . . while early on it's clear that it's a colony ship with a giant engine strapped onto it, I think the narrative would have worked much better had the ship just been this massive impersonal thing in the sky. To have it just sitting up there while everyone else scrambles about to stay alive and to open the question of whether it even knows the destruction it's causing, or what purpose it has, would have been more interesting. But Stanislaw Lem's concept of aliens as beings that cannot be understood (via "Solaris") hadn't really filtered over here yet and so we get to meet the aliens. And they are a tad . . . disappointing. Leiber does manage to make them somewhat interesting by the end but I wonder how different the plot would have been were that angle tackled. Even so, the book remains an entertaining, even quick, read that doesn't quite manage to convey the scope of what it's telling (it mentions millions of people dying at one point but you don't really get a feel for it) although the initial idea is fantastic and would be used in different ways by other authors down the line.

While everyone's eyes are turned to the skies to watch a lunar eclipse, a planet appears out of nowhere. At first, people are intersted in this new planet, then the devastating earthquakes and tidal changes begin as the Wanderer, as many have named the planet, begins threatening the Moon.This engrossing novel catalogs the catastrophic events following the Wanderer's appearance through the eyes of many people instead of focusing on just on small group. From the saucer students, gathered on a California beach near Vandenburg 2 to watch the eclipse, to a treasure hunter in the waters off Vietnam, to a man crossing the Atlantic on a small boat and a cruise liner being hijacked off the coast of South America, and even to a few astronauts on the Moon. The author Fritz Leiber does't just give an anecdotal visit to each; he returns to them, keeps their storylines going so that the reader gets mutliple viewpoints of the same events. This is especially effective when the saucer students on Earth watch what the Wanderer does to the Moon, while the astronauts on the Moon live through the experience. It keeps reminding you that the events have a global impact. Plus, Leiber's descriptions are rich and detailed, even with some hand drawn illustrations showing the phases of the Wanderer.Full of rich descriptions and great characters, this is a very entertaining sci-fi novel.

This is simply one of the best books of Leiber. It is poetic, filled with entrancing images, beautiful cats, utterly bizarre situations. It was one of the first to use the "mosaic" form of writing, where several different plots are being exposed simultaneously (a later example is John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar). If you like to dream, read it, you 'll love it.