''Rogue in Space'' is a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by American writer
Fredric Brown, first published in 1957. Brown expanded two earlier novelettes ("Gateway to Darkness", published in ''
Super Science Stories'' in 1949; and "Gateway to Glory", published in ''
Amazing Stories'' in 1950) to form the novel.
Plot summary
In the book a sentient and powerful
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
arrives in the solar system's asteroid belt after countless aeons of wandering interstellar space. Passing by another asteroid, the living asteroid makes its first ever encounter with other living beings - a likeable criminal involved in a life-and-death struggle with a corrupt and power-mad judge.
The judge is eventually killed, but so too is his beautiful wife who had allied herself with the criminal, the couple falling in love. Whilst the god-like living asteroid builds a new world around itself, and blocks all mankind's efforts to investigate it, eventually the criminal returns to the planet with a small group. The sentient asteroid allows them to make planetfall, but only the criminal can accept living in the new Eden created for him, and they eventually depart. The alien then resurrects the late judge's wife.
Reception
Floyd C. Gale reviewed the novel unfavorably in
''Galaxy'', saying that the story's logical flaws could have been forgiven "had Brown realized he was writing a funny story and treated it that way. He didn't."
Anthony Boucher defined ''Rogue in Space'' "a thumping error in judgment," saying the decision to expand "one of
rown'sleast interesting stories to novel length" produced a work that had "lost what small virtues it once possessed, and become slow, ponderous, humorless
ndpretentious."
["Recommended Reading," '']F&SF
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spiva ...
'', May 1957, p.75.
John Varley John Varley may refer to:
* John Varley (canal engineer) (1740–1809), English canal engineer
* John Varley (painter) (1778–1842), English painter and astrologer
* John Varley (author) (born 1947), American science fiction author
* John Silvest ...
's story "Lollipop and the Tar Baby", set in his ''
Eight Worlds
The Eight Worlds are the fictional setting of a series of science fiction novels and short stories by John Varley, in which the Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-lim ...
'' future, uses a similar premise - featuring a sentient
Black Hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
and its interactions with humans.
References
Sources
*
External links
*
Review
1957 American novels
1957 science fiction novels
Novels by Fredric Brown
American science fiction novels
E. P. Dutton books
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