The Wanderer tells the story of Earth's response to a weird, purple and yellow planet arriving in our atmosphere. Hippies in NYC, astronauts piloting ships at the lunar base, a smuggler in Vietnam, a trio on a cross-desert drive—Leiber gives a variety of viewpoints to the mysterious appearance. When it destroys the moon, however, Earth's tidal patterns are thrown into chaos, and the anthill of humanity is well and truly kicked.
The Wanderer is a lot of things (intentionally) rolled into one. Leiber uses the appearance of the rogue planet as A) catastrophe fiction, B) flying saucer fiction, C) hard science fiction, D) surrealism, E) social commentary, F) alien encounter fiction, and G) stoner fiction. It's a lot of things. More precisely stated: it's a lot of perspectives on a massive disruption to normal human life. And tweaker cats. Which would seem the point of the novel: the subjectivity of perception...
But I'm not convinced. It's too trite, too easy an interpretation, too rudimentary. Leiber saved his comfort stories for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. In The Wanderer the setup seems more a straight-forward, entertaining what-if. What if, indeed, cats were aliens in the wild beyond? Let's have fun with that. I'm not sure there is a point beneath.
In the end, The Wanderer is a novel that is difficult to put under a glass and study. It is many things, but seems to be lacking substance worth the microscope. It's sophisticated pulp, for lack of a better descriptor. And for as much as I dislike cats, I can't help but feel Leiber captures their alien nature, well.
Re: "I dislike cats. I don't hate them. I don't swerve toward them in the car. But I'd rather not live with them. They're alien. They lack of emotion—the twitchiness, the tweaker clawing, the killing of things just for fun then playing with it. I find it difficult to relate to such psychopaths."
ReplyDeleteCalling cats psychopaths shows your stupidity and disdain for them.
They're anything but psychopaths. Many humans are!
In fact, by FAR the most vital urgent and DEEP understanding everyone needs to gain is that a mafia network of manipulating PSYCHOPATHS are, and always have been, governing big businesses and institutions (eg official medicine, big academia, big tech, big banks, big religions), governments and the world -- the evidence is very solid in front of everyone's "awake" nose: see “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room”... https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” --- Dresden James
And psychopaths are typically NOT how Hollywood propaganda movies (or the Wikipedia/WebMD propaganda outlets) have showcased them. And therefore one better RE-learns what a psychopath REALLY is. One'll then know why they exploit/harm everyone, why they want to control everyone and have been creating a new world order/global dictatorship, and many other formerly puzzling things will become very clear.
The official narrative is… “trust official science” and "trust the authorities" but as with these and all other "official narratives" they want you to trust and believe …
“We’ll know our Disinformation Program is complete when everything the American public [and global public] believes is false.” —William Casey, a former CIA director=a leading psychopathic criminal of the genocidal US regime
“Repeating what others say and think is not being awake. Humans have been sold many lies...God, Jesus, Democracy, Money, Education, etc. If you haven't explored your beliefs about life, then you are not awake.” --- E.J. Doyle, songwriter
But global rulership by psychopaths is only ONE part of the equation that makes up the destructive human condition as the cited article above explains.
Without a proper understanding, and full acknowledgment, of the true WHOLE problem and reality, no real constructive LASTING change is possible for humanity.
And if anyone does NOT acknowledge, recognize, and face (either wittingly or unwittingly) the WHOLE truth THEY are helping to prevent this from happening. And so they are "part of the problem" and not part of the solution.
If you have been injected with Covid jabs/bioweapons and are concerned, then verify what batch number you were injected with at https://howbadismybatch.com
"There are large numbers of scientists, doctors, and presstitutes who will sell out truth for money, such as those who describe people dropping dead on a daily basis as “rare” when it it happening all over the vaccinated world." --- Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., American economist & former US empire official, in 2024
"Every time people accept a new restriction—mask mandates, digital IDs, cashless payments, 'green' regulations—they reinforce the system and normalize control. Authorities rely on social pressure and fear of consequences to drive compliance. Most individuals don't want conflict, so they follow rules even when they disagree. THIS SILENT MAJORITY ENABLES A SMALL ELITE TO CONTROL BILLIONS. Without MASS OBEDIENCE, digital IDs, CBDCs, and surveillance grids cannot be enforced at scale. The system thrives not just on active co-operation, but on passive acceptance—shrugging off restrictions as inevitable or 'for the greater good'. NON-COMPLIANCE—whether through using cash, rejecting digital IDs, or resisting propaganda—denies elites the participation they need to legitimize their agendas. Ultimately, compliance is the lifeblood of control; RESISTANCE, EVEN IN SMALL ACTS, IS THE ANTIDOTE." --- AI Chat bot in 2025 (https://archive.ph/Wdzsg)
:D :D :D :D :D Thank you, thank you, thank you for making my Sunday morning!! Still laughing...
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