The Wanderer Audiobook By Fritz Leiber cover art

The Wanderer

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The Wanderer

By: Fritz Leiber
Narrated by: Norman Deitz
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In the future, men and women have colonized the moon, and dazzling technological advances have created a better life for those on Earth. But the arrival of "the Wanderer" may change all that.

A sphere of immense size, it appears suddenly one night during a lunar eclipse, causing crushing quakes on the Moon and catastrophes on Earth. Now, Lt. Don Merriam must find a way to reach the Wanderer and discover its purpose.

©1964 Fritz Leiber (P)1992 Recorded Books, LLC Fiction Science Fiction

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1965
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hugo winner. strange but intesting story of survival and alien encounter. with some philosophy. enjoyed it.

unusual story from 1965

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dont bother boring over written in detail that don't make any differance to what little plot there is. the reading is realy bad and makes the whole thing hart to follow

to bad

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The premise for this book struck me as potentially very interesting but I'm afraid for me it reads more as a very, very dated scifi story. It's almost like an alternate history scifi novel but stuck in a pre-moon-landing era where rocket ships are cones with three legs and people still weren't even sure what the moon would be like. The author seems to strive to base things in science but it winds up stuck in late 50's speculation.

I'd recommend passing on this book and sticking with the more imaginative and less dated works by Heinlein or Niven.

dated scifi

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Would you try another book from Fritz Leiber and/or Norman Deitz?

The narrator was fine, and I've enjoyed other works by Lieber, but I'll be cautious.

Any additional comments?

There's a scene in the middle that almost made me throw my ipod out the car window. It's more-or-less a military rape, given the power dynamic between the two characters involved, with bonus mutual asphyxiation, while the waters rise, leading to their inevitable death by drowning. Yes, it's as horrid as that sounds, if not worse.

Before that, there are obnoxious potheads who don't die nearly fast enough, and the token Vietnamese character, whose sole purpose in this book is to show that the events are affecting the whole world.

And don't get me started on the alien catwoman...

Dated and dull

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