I read this the other day and was actually pleasantly surprised. For a piece of fifty-year-old-I-found-you-on-a-bargain-table-at-a-flea-market literature, I actually found myself enjoying the story(more for the way it was told than the far-fetched plot itself)
What I’m wondering is if any Dopers have read this, and if so, if any of them know anything about why there’s a disclaimer on the copyright page “The opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author.” I actually find myself thinking “What opinions?” I cannot find any allegorical signifigance in this work, unless some of the completely out-in-left-field concepts of human transcendence are to be taken seriously. Anyone have a clue?
Opinions like racial memory which goes backward in time, for one I suppose.
Equating devils with saviors of the race, or helpers of “God”.
It was written in the 50’s, after all, when comic books were banned, and the “red scare” and “stamp out godless atheism” campaigns were going on. ACC probably didn’t want to be personally identified as holding to the concepts he was playing with. It was a different era.
check out this thread on the subject.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98165&highlight=childhoods
Thanks.
Can someone tell me what the story is about? seems familiar…
Take Independence Day up until the aliens show they’re bad guys, then jump to the end of Close Encounters, then add a little bit of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Top with the last 60 seconds of 2001.
Aliens come, solve all the world’s problems, push human evolution up to the next level, move on.
Chapter 20 made me cry. snif