Walter Tevis was not an extremely prolific writer. Over 22 years he only published 6 novels and a couple dozen short stories with the late 60s and 70s being a virtual wasteland of publications for him. But what he did write was extremely well received and half of his novels were made into movies, including the classic The Hustler, its sequel The Color of Money and the science fiction classic The Man Who Fell To Earth. The movie version of the book starred David Bowie as the main character and wasn’t that well received when it came out, but has since attained a cult status. So, let’s check out the book and see what happened.
Out of nowhere a man walks into a pawn shop and sells a gold ring. The proprietor lowballs him on the price, but the man isn’t worried, he has many more to sell. The man, Thomas J Newton, has come from another planet, Anthea, on a grave mission. He needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few years. He has advanced scientific knowledge which he works with a patent attorney to patent and start a company to produce new inventions.
Nathan Bryce is a chemist working on his degree when he comes across some of Newton’s inventions (including film that develops by itself and pop caps that don’t use any kind of gunpowder. He does some investigation into it, as a curious chemist is wont to do, and realizes that the technology is at least a generation (if not more) ahead of what had come along previously. He jokes that it is of extra-terrestrial origin (without knowing how close he is).
Bryce eventually decides that he wants to work with Newton’s company and becomes friends with him as well as finding out the reason why Newton came to Earth. At this point the government comes in, as they had been watching Newton as well. The question comes as to whether the government interference will effect Newton’s long range plan and whether or not the government will just bury Newton if they don’t get what they want.
Overall, the book is slight in plot and ideas, but the story is huge in characterization. Newton is a physically fragile person who feels duty to planet and worries about being able to do his best. But, at the same time, he’s billions of miles away from home, surrounded by people who might try to kill him if they knew his true origin and he’s sad and lonely. The loneliness is the theme that goes throughout the book. Newton truly has no one, which is one of the reasons he befriends Bryce. Overall, it’s a wonderful little book.A quick read with some great characters. Highly recommended.