Harold found a 1952 issue of Future Science Fiction for me. The issue’s a bit uneven, but still fun reading the dated scifi and ads, and there’s an interesting letter to the editor from Judith Merril, suggesting a theme for an anthology. This magazine came out in 1952, so she’d written some fiction but hadn’t curated any collections yet.

I was interested in The Tomorrow People because I’d heard it referenced, and I always seek out women scifi writers. But The Tomorrow People is… a pretty dreadful book. The premise is intriguing: two guys were alone on Mars together, and one of them just took off, never to be seen again. The missing man left no note, and ripped the last few pages out of their log before leaving, and the survivor has no idea why. After a battery of psychological tests back on earth, he still has no idea why.

Perhaps to avoid too much infodumping, a lot of the book is made up of choppy dialogue clips.  These scenes made me believe that the characters knew each other, but didn’t have the context to move the plot. Endless scenes of “Hey pal, you see the guy about the thing?” may feel like natural chatter between friends, but doesn’t make compelling fiction.

Gideon Marcus at Galactic Journey called it “a trilogy’s worth of ideas but a novella’s worth of action” and, seriously, that’s a much better way to describe the fascinating premise and dull conversations than anything I could come up with.

There’s a gorgeous dancer called Lisa, and everyone is in love with her.  Lisa only has eyes for Johnny, and spends key scenes trying to manage his emotions. (Girlie, dump him!) Because Lisa and Johnny’s relationship was such a romance-novel cliche of the tortured hero and the woman who stands by him, and because the book really does progress in conversational half-references to the plot, I didn’t fully register that her pregnancy was supposed to be a secret. Of course they’re going to have a cute little baby, and he’ll realize that Life Goes On and have a happy ending. I’ve read a romance novel before!

Maybe everyone’s crazy about her because she’s so good at everything, or maybe it’s because she’s the only woman mentioned in the first 2/3rds of the book. I know, I know, I recently wrote a post saying how much I like seeing scifi heroines who are both pretty and good at things. But I don’t mean someone gorgeous and perfect, with everyone in love with them, and the best at every single action they attempt. I don’t really like calling too-perfect characters Mary Sues, because it implies that a successful and attractive woman character can only be a self-insert, but after this one, I may start calling them Lisas.

There is one moment when Johnny’s thinking about how hot Lisa will be in space, and he imagines her in a sexy space bubble, like on those pulpy magazine covers. I think he (and Merril) are probably picturing this one, where I originally found Merril’s letter to this editor.

Steevithak says “It’s not a terrible book and it actually became slightly interesting towards the end.” The last section has interesting scenes of an alien life form trying to communicate in English, and I basically always love first contact stories. But by this point, I wanted every single character to shut up, so I wasn’t entirely sure why the Martians wanted to waste the effort talking to these annoying losers.

Gideon Marcus’ amazing review at Galactic Journey says:

Every novel is a kind of contract with the reader, a promise that ideas, events, and characters will be presented in the beginning such that, by the end, they will have facilitated a satisfying story.  A corollary to this is that a writer must ensure that all of a story’s scenes are interesting to the reader.  Lesser authors pound their keys trying to get “to the good parts,” stringing together pearls of interest with thread of mediocre space-filler.

Judith Merril has managed to break the above-described contract in spectacular fashion, by publishing a story solely of the thread between the pearls.

Such a perfect description of the overall atmosphere reading this. I often read novels that impress me with the author’s craft of writing, but how often can the writing quality in a book review do that?!?

Anyway, The Tomorrow People was kind of a disappointment, but not so bad that I won’t look up her next book, Shadows on the Hearth.

• Marcus, Gideon. “[May 25, 1960] Getting There Is Half the Problem (Judith Merril’s the Tomorrow People).” Galactic Journey, 25 May 2015, galacticjourney.org/may-25-1960-getting-there-is-half-the-problem-judith-merrils-the-tomorrow-people/.
• Merril, Judith. “Letter to the Editor.” Future Science Fiction, July 1952, p. 10.
• Rainwater, Steve. “The Tomorrow People.” Steevithak of the Internet, 18 Aug. 2013, www.steevithak.com/2013/08/18/the-tomorrow-people/.
• Webster, Bud. “Merrily We Roll Along or, That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Judith.” Past Masters, Galactic Central, www.philsp.com/articles/pastmasters_15.html. Accessed 22 July 2025.