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Page 132
Greek verb "to wander"), for they have not had any real warning and the idea of a planet suddenly appearing next to Earth in the Moon's orbit is too enormous a concept for their minds to grasp quickly, if at all.
For the most part, those characters who quickly assimilate the real nature of the Wanderer and its effects on the planet are those who are science-fiction readers. Leiber seems to feel that exposure to the "wild" ideas of science fiction may enhance the reader's ability to accept change more easily. This is a view very much in line with that expressed by the astronomer Carl Sagan: "The greatest human significance of science fiction may be as experiments on the future, as explorations of alternative destinies, as attempts to minimize future shock."
The appearance of the planet is enough in itself to cause enormous human disruption, for it drastically violates everyone's views of the natural state of the cosmos. In addition, the physical effects are disastrous. Leiber spent a great deal of time researching and calculating the "astronomy of the thing and a great deal more in the tidal effects, making out tidal charts for each place mentioned in the book." The Wanderer destroys and "devours" the Moon, and the tidal disruption of the Earth causes widespread earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and fires. Leiber's first-page parallel with the Earth and the human soul is very important, for the "deep fissures" are physical and emotional. (. . .)
At the conclusion of the novel, a second planet arrives and a cosmic battle between the two visitors is briefly featured. The Wanderer departs with the police planet in pursuit. Leiber leave us, however, with a feeling of ambiguity. Tigerishka has made it clear that humans can expect to be visited, and engulfed, by the galactic civilization in the near future. Although this disaster has ended, there is nothing that humans can do to avert a later and more final one.
Jeff Frane, Fritz Leiber (Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1980), pp. 33-34, 36
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Justin Leiber
In You're All Alone (1950) one of the narrowest and most dramatic expressions of paranoia that I have ever known is explored. The protagonist discovers that almost everyone in his present-day world operates like a Leibnizian "windowless" monad. They all are following a prearranged, automatic pattern that makes them look like they are interacting while in fact they are not. If you are one of the very few

 
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