The Man Who Fell to Earth

By Walter Tevis

The “beautiful” novel that inspired the Showtime series, from a Nebula Award finalist (The New York Times).
 
The Man Who Fell to Earth tells the story of Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien disguised as a human who comes to Earth on a mission to save his people. Devastated by nuclear war, his home planet, Anthea, is no longer habitable. Newton lands in Kentucky and starts patenting Anthean technology—amassing the fortune he needs to build a spaceship that will bring the last three hundred Anthean survivors to Earth.
 
But instead of the help he seeks, he finds only self-destruction, sinking into alcoholism and abandoning his spaceship, in this poignant story about the human condition—which has inspired both a film starring David Bowie and the new series starring Chiwetel Ejiofor—by the acclaimed author of Mockingbird.
 
“Beautiful science fiction . . . The story of an extraterrestrial visitor from another planet is designed mainly to say something about life on this one.” —The New York Times
 
“An utterly realistic novel about an alien human on Earth . . . Realistic enough to become a metaphor for something inside us all, some existential loneliness.” —Norman Spinrad, author of The Iron Dream
 
“Those who know The Man Who Fell to Earth only from the film version are missing something. This is one of the finest science fiction novels of its period.” —J. R. Dunn, author of This Side of Judgment

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9780795343025

Book preview

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Walter Tevis

Copyright

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Copyright © 1963, 1991, 2014 by Walter Tevis

Cover art, special contents, and electronic edition © 2014 by RosettaBooks LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover design by Brad Albright

ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795343025

For Jamie

who knows Anthea better than I

Contents

1985: Icarus descending

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

1988: Rumplestiltskin

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

1990: Icarus drowning

Chapter 1

1985:

Icarus descending

1

After two miles of walking he came to a town. At the town’s edge was a sign that read Haneyville; Pop. 1400. That was good, a good size. It was still early in the morning—he had chosen morning for the two-mile walk, because it was cooler then—and there was no one yet in the streets. He walked for several blocks in the weak light, confused at the strangeness—tense and somewhat frightened. He tried not to think of what he was going to do. He had thought about it enough already.

In the small business district he found what he wanted, a tiny store called The Jewel Box. On the street corner nearby was a green wooden bench, and he went to it and seated himself, his body aching from the labor of the long walk.

It was a few minutes later that he saw a human being.

It was a woman, a tired-looking woman in a shapeless blue dress, shuffling toward him up the street. He quickly averted his eyes, dumbfounded. She did not look right. He had expected them to be about his size, but this one was more than a head shorter than he. Her complexion was ruddier than he had expected, and darker. And the look, the feel, was strange—even though he had known that seeing them would not be the same as watching them on television.

Eventually there were more people on the street, and they were all, roughly, like the first one. He heard a man remark, in passing, …like I say, they don’t make cars like that one no more, and, although the enunciation was odd, less crisp than he had expected, he could understand the man easily.

Several people stared at him, a few of them suspiciously; but this did not worry him. He did not expect to be molested, and he was confident after observing the others that his clothes would bear up under inspection.

When the jewelry store opened he waited for ten minutes and then walked in. There was one man behind the counter, a small, chubby man in a white shirt and tie, dusting the shelves. The man stopped dusting, looked at him for a moment, a trifle strangely, and said, Yes sir?

He felt over tall, awkward. And suddenly very frightened. He opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. He tried to smile, and his face seemed to freeze. He felt, deep in him, something beginning to panic, and for a moment he thought he might faint.

The man was still staring at him, and his look seemed not to have changed. Yes sir? he said again.

By a great effort of will he was able to speak. I… I wonder if you might be interested in this… ring? How many times had he planned that innocuous question, said it over and over to himself? And yet now it rang strangely in his ears, like a ridiculous group of nonsense syllables.

The other man was still staring at him. What ring? he said.

Oh. Somehow he managed a smile. He slipped the gold ring from the finger of his left hand and set it on the counter, afraid to touch the man’s hand. I… was driving through and my car broke down. A few miles down the road. I don’t have any money; I thought perhaps I could sell my ring. It’s quite valuable.

The man was turning the ring over in his hands, looking at it suspiciously. Finally he said, Where’d you get this?

The way the man said it made his breath choke in his throat. Could there be something wrong? The color of the gold? Something about the diamond? He tried to smile again. My wife gave it to me. Several years ago.

The man’s face was still clouded. How do I know it isn’t stolen?

Oh. The relief was exquisite. My name is in the ring. He pulled his billfold from his breast pocket. And I have identification. He took the passport out and set it on the counter.

The man looked at the ring and read aloud, T.J. from Marie Newton, Anniversary, 1982, and then 18 K. He set the ring down, picked up the passport, and leafed through it. England?

Yes. I’m an interpreter at the United Nations. This is my first trip here. Trying to see the country.

Mmm, the man said, looking at the passport again. I figured you talked with an accent. When he found the picture he read the name. Thomas Jerome Newton, and then, looking up again. No question about that. This is you, all right.

He smiled again, and this time the smile was more relaxed, more genuine, although he still felt lightheaded, strange—always there was the tremendous weight of his own body, the weight produced by the leaden gravity of this place. But he managed to say pleasantly, Well then, would you be interested in buying the ring…?

***

He got sixty dollars for it, and knew that he had been cheated. But what he had now was worth more to him than the ring, more than the hundreds of rings just like it that he had with him. Now he had the first beginnings of confidence, and he had money.

With some of the money he bought a half pound of bacon, six eggs, bread, a few potatoes, some vegetables—ten pounds of food altogether, all that he could carry. His presence aroused some curiosity, but no one asked questions, and he did not volunteer answers. It would not make any difference; he would not be back in that Kentucky town again.

When he left the town he felt well enough, in spite of all of the weight and the pain in his joints and in his back, for he had mastered the first step, he had made his start, he now owned his first American money. But when he was a mile from the town, walking through a barren field, toward the low hills where his camp was, all of it suddenly came over him in one crushing shock—the strangeness of it, the danger, the pain and worry in his body—and he fell to the ground and lay there, his body and his mind crying out against the violence that was being done to them by this most foreign, most strange and alien of all places.

He was sick; sick from the long, dangerous trip he had taken, sick from all the medicine—the pills, the inoculations, the inhaled gases—sick from worry, the anticipation of crisis, and terribly sick from the awful burden of his own weight. He had known for years that when the time came, when he would finally land and begin to effect that complex, long-prepared plan, he would feel something like this. This place, however much he had studied it, however much he had rehearsed his part in it, was so incredibly alien—the feeling, now that he could feel—the feeling was overpowering. He lay down in the grass and became very sick.

He was not a man; yet he was very much like a man. He was six and a half feet tall, and some men are even taller than that; his hair was as white as that of an albino, yet his face was a light tan color; and his eyes a pale blue. His frame was improbably slight, his features delicate, his fingers long, thin, and the skin almost translucent, hairless. There was an elfin quality to his face, a fine boyish look to the wide, intelligent eyes, and the white, curly hair now grew a little over his ears. He seemed quite young.

There were other differences, too; his fingernails, for example, were artificial, for he had none by nature. There were only four toes on each of his feet; he had no vermiform appendix and no wisdom teeth. It would have been impossible for him to develop hiccups, for his diaphragm, together with the rest of his breathing apparatus, was extremely sturdy, very highly developed. His chest expansion would have been about five inches. He weighed very little, about ninety pounds.

Yet he did have eyelashes, eyebrows, opposed thumbs, binocular vision, and a thousand of the physiological features of a normal human. He was incapable of warts; but stomach ulcers, measles and dental caries could affect him. He was human; but not, properly, a man. Also, manlike, he was susceptible to love, to fear, to intense physical pain and to self-pity.

After a half hour he felt better. His stomach was still trembling and he felt as if he could not lift his head; but there was a sense that the first crisis was past and he began to look more objectively at the world around him. He sat up and looked across the field he was in. It was a grubby, flat pasture, with small areas of brown grass, a broom sage, and patches of glassy, refrozen snow. The air was quite clear and the sky overcast, so that the light was diffused and soft and did not hurt his eyes as the glaring sunlight had two days before. There were a small house and a barn on the other side of the clump of dark and barren trees that fringed a pond. He could see the water of the pond through the trees, and the sight of it made his breath catch, for there was so much of it. He had seen it before like that, in his two days on earth; but he was not yet used to it. It was another of those things that he had expected but was still a shock to see. He knew, of course, about the great oceans and about the lakes and rivers, had known about them since he was a boy; but the actual sight of the profusion of water in a single pond was breathtaking.

He began to see a kind of beauty in the strangeness of the field, too. It was quite different from what he had been taught to expect—as, he had already discovered, were many of the things of this world—yet there was pleasure now for him in its alien colors and textures, its new sights and smells. Its sounds, too; for his ears were very acute and he heard many strange and pleasant noises in the grass, the diverse rubbings and clickings of those insects that had survived the cold weather of early November; and even, with his head now against the ground, the very small, subtle murmurings in the earth itself.

Suddenly there was a fluttering in the air, an uprush of black wings, then hoarse, mournful calling, and a dozen crows flew overhead and away across the field. The Anthean watched them until they were out of sight, and then he smiled. This would be, after all, a fine world….

***

His camp was in a barren spot, carefully chosen—an abandoned eastern Kentucky coalfield. There was nothing within several miles of it but stripped ground, small patches of pale broom grass, and some outcroppings of sooty rock. Near one of these outcroppings his tent was pitched, barely visible against the rock. The tent was gray, and was made of what seemed to be cotton twill.

He was almost exhausted when he got there, and had to rest for several minutes before opening the sack and taking out the food. He did this carefully, putting on thin gloves before touching the packages, and then laying them on a small folding table. From beneath the table he withdrew a group of instruments, and set them beside the things he had bought in Haneyville. He looked for a moment at the eggs, potatoes, celery, radishes, rice, beans, sausage, and carrots. He smiled for an instant, to himself. The food seemed innocent.

Then he picked up one of the small metallic devices, inserted an end of it into the potato, and began the qualitative analysis….

Three hours later he ate the carrot, raw, and took a bite out of the radish, which burned his tongue. The food was good—extremely strange, but good. Then he made a fire and boiled the egg and the potato. The sausage he buried—having found some amino acids in it that he was not certain of. But there was no danger for him, except for the ever-present bacteria, in the other food. It was as they had hoped. He found the potato delicious, in spite of all the carbohydrates.

He was very tired. But before he lay down on his cot he went outside to look at the spot where he had destroyed the engine and instruments of his one-passenger craft two days before, his first day on Earth.

2

The music was the Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A Major. Just before the final allegretto, Farnsworth adjusted the bass response on each of the preamplifiers and boosted the volume slightly. Then he settled himself ponderously in the leather armchair. He liked the allegretto with strong bass overtones; they gave the clarinet a resonance which, in itself, seemed to hold some kind of meaning. He stared at the curtain window that overlooked Fifth Avenue; he folded his plump fingers together, and listened to the music build.

When it had finished and the tape had cut off its own power, he looked over toward the doorway that led into the outer office and saw that the maid was standing there patiently, waiting for him. He glanced at the porcelain clock on the mantel and frowned. Then he looked at the maid and said, Yes?

A Mr. Newton is here, sir.

Newton? He knew no wealthy Newtons. What does he want?

He didn’t say, sir. Then she raised one eyebrow slightly. He’s odd, sir. And he looks very… important.

He thought for a moment, and then said. Show him in.

The maid had been right; the man was very odd. Tall, thin, with white hair and a fine, delicate bone structure. He had smooth skin and a boyish face—but the eyes were very strange, as though they were weak, over-sensitive, yet with a look that was old and wise and tired. The man wore an expensive dark gray suit. He walked to a chair and sat down carefully—easing himself into the seat as if he were carrying a great deal of weight. Then he looked at Farnsworth and smiled. Oliver Farnsworth?

Would you like a drink, Mr. Newton?

A glass of water, please.

Farnsworth mentally shrugged his shoulders and relayed the order to the maid. Then, when she had left, he looked at his guest and leaned forward with that universal gesture which means, Let’s get on with it.

Newton, however, remained sitting erect, his long, thin hands folded in his lap, and said, You are good with patents, I understand? There was a trace of an accent in his voice and his enunciation was too precise, too formal. Farnsworth could not identify the accent.

Yes. Farnsworth said, and then somewhat curtly, I have office hours, Mr. Newton.

Newton seemed not to hear this. His tone was gentle, warm. I understand, in fact, that you are the best man in the United States with patents. Also that you are very expensive.

Yes. I’m good.

Fine. the other said. He reached down beside his chair and lifted his briefcase.

And what do you want? Farnsworth looked at the clock again.

I would like to plan some things with you. The tall man was taking an envelope from his case.

Isn’t it pretty late?

Newton had opened the envelope and he now withdrew a thin sheaf of bills, wrapped with a rubber band. He looked up and smiled genially. Would you please come and get these? It is very difficult for me to walk. My legs.

Annoyed, Farnsworth pulled himself up from his chair, walked to the tall man, took the money, returned, and sat down. They were thousand-dollar bills.

There are ten of them, Newton said.

You’re being pretty damn melodramatic, aren’t you? He put the stack into the pocket of his lounging-jacket. Now what’s this for?

For tonight, Newton said. For about three hours of your close attention.

But why, for heaven’s sake, at night?

The other shrugged his shoulders casually. Oh, several reasons. Privacy is one of them.

You could have had my attention for less than ten thousand dollars.

Yes. But I also wanted to impress you with the… importance of our talk.

Well. Farnsworth settled back

Reviews for The Man Who Fell to Earth

[xuebi-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent piece of sci-fi writing, but more so a parable of the Fifties and of the Cold War, the constant talk of the Other and the dangers it posed. Beyond that it is an evocation of existential loneliness and most of all it is true and saddening representation of alcoholism.

[ghr4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Walter Tevis's The Man Who Fell to Earth is a contemplative and tragic science fiction tale concerning an alien from the distant planet Anthea who comes to earth seeking to save his dying world and its inhabitabts from extinction. With overt allusions to the Greek mythology of Icarus, an Athenian who, unable to tread that narrow path between complacency and hubris, flew too too close to the sun, fell into the sea, and ultimately drowned. Initially the extraterrestrial Newton exhibits great determination and confidence, only to sink into despair after outside forces intervene, and, dreams dashed, he finally succumbs to a most common human frailty. Though I found Tevis's prose rather ordinary and nowhere near the poetic beauty that some have suggested, this is nevertheless a deeply moving story, which also resonates as a compelling portrait of alienation, the bitter amalgam of isolation and loneliness.

[unapersson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic new wave science fiction novel about an alien who lands on earth to try and raise the funds to start work on a special project. Years of training do little to prepare him for the reality of interacting with human culture and he begins to question his whole reason for being here.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

USA, 1985-1990En person fra en fremmed planet, Anthea, ankommer til Jorden tæt ved Haneyville, Kentucky, USA. Han har manga guldringe med og en hel del planer. Han opsøger en advokat Oliver Farnsworth og viser ham nogle af planerne. Det er tekniske beskrivelser af ting, som på jorden er patenterbare opfindelser. Nogle af dem er basispatenter på helt nye teknologier.På kort tid får den fremmede, der kalder sig Thomas Jerome Newton, et meget velhavende firma, World Enterprises Corporation bygget op. Han har taget Farnsworth ind som partner og planen er på fem år at skrabe mindst 500 millioner dollars ind, som Newton skal bruge på et forskningsprojekt.Professor Nathan Bryce underviser i kemi og falder over en selvfremkaldende film, ASA 200-3000, fra W.E.Corp. og ved hvor umuilgt et teknologisk spring, det repræsenterer. Han bruger tid på at spore baglæns gennem W.E.Corp til Newton og ender med at arbejde for ham. Egentlig havde han gættet på at Newton enten var et geni eller udenjordisk, men han overgiver sig blankt, da han i Newton møder en venlig og skrøbelig person, der ikke virker rask, men som snarere har et alkoholproblem. Bryce arbejder på Newtons projekt med at bygge et rumfartøj, men der er et stykke fra Newtons geniale planer for dette og så til noget, der kan bygges med jordisk teknologi.Projektet trækker ud. Newton får sig en husholderske Betty Jo og fortsætter med at være lige fascineret af vand og af hård alkohol. Bryce er stadig mistænksom overfor Newton og arrangerer en skjult røntgenfotografering. Newton er ikke så overrasket, da Bryce senere spørger ham ligeud, for Newton kan se røntgenstråling, men ikke farven rød. Newton bruger anledningen til at fortælle Bryce ikke så lidt, for han er selv i tvivl om hvad han egentlig er ude på. Oprindeligt gik planen ud på at sende et rumfartøj tilbage til Anthea og hente de resterende ca 300 overlevende på planeten, men Newton er alvorligt i tvivl om hvorvidt det egentlig er en god ide. Selv synes han nemlig at han er ved at blive sindssyg af at leve på Jorden. Kort tid efter samtalen med Bryce afslører en anden af Newtons medarbejdere sig som FBI-agent. Fbi arresterer Newton og overgiver ham til CIA, der stort set allerede ved alt. Da de er færdige med at prikke til ham og tage prøver overlader de ham til FBI, der prikker til ham og tager prøver. Desværre røntgenfotograferer de også hans øjne, hvilket efterlader ham som næsten totalt blind.Han opgiver endeligt planen om at sende rumskibet afsted og fordriver så ellers tiden med at drikke. Han er stadigt rig, men bortset fra at stikke lidt penge - en million dollars - til Bryce og Betty Jo, så de kan tage afsted sammen, så bruger han ikke sine penge til noget særligt.Slutningen er melankolsk, for Newton drikker sig stille ihjel, mens han og Bryce og Betty Jo venter på at den næste krig vil ødelægge Jorden lige så fuldkomment som krigene på Anthea har ødelagt den planet.Bogen er skrevet i 1963 og foregik da i 1970'erne. Denne anden udgave er skubbet lidt frem i tid og der er også et par bemærkninger om Watergate.Jeg kan godt lide bogen, men burde købe en udgave med en anden og læselig font.

[gbelik_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was quite a short novel. An extraterrestrial arrives on earth with advanced technology which enables him to make a fortune with which he will build a ship to bring the few remaining people from his planet to Earth. Things do not go quite as expected. Quite a touching story.

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Okay, it's a sixties book. War is bad. It's less an sf book than an ideological exploration, but I'm not entirely sure what the author actually accomplished. 

[terris-7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written in 1963, this is a "futuristic" story set in the 1980's of an alien who comes to Earth to try to save his the people of his own planet and Earth's people too. Of course, it doesn't turn out exactly as he expects. I liked how it was written, how the author tried to write it as set in the future, but you could tell he was still in a 1960's mindset. It is short and an interesting read. I first read it in 1978 and still enjoyed it in "the future" of 2017!!

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an introductory book of Tevis for me, and my response is to immediately obtain at least two more as this prose is much better than the movie, even with David Bowie playiang an excellent Thomas Newton. Of course, one art form invites comparison to the other so I shall see the movie again forthwith. Where do we sequester these excellent writers that one falls upon by mistake or accident., Rather to have rlead this writer than Samuel Johnson or some other verbose wag of prissy parsimony.

[andersocheva · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A series of patents in the fields of chemistry and electronics, held by the mysterious World Enterprises Corporation, are slowly revolutionising everyday technology: 3D television, super high-definition self-developing film, a smoke- and odourless gunpowder replacement for toy guns, and dozens of other inventions. The owner of World Enterprises is the reclusive Thomas Jerome Newton, a man seen by very few people and with even fewer friends, and found exceedingly eccentric, in a quiet and unobtrusive way, by those who see him. Very few even suspect the truth behind the advanced patents and his polite but strange demeanour: Newton is not human. He is an alien on a mission to save his people, and the inventions are just the quickest way to amass the fortune needed to build a spaceship to transport the few hundred remaining of his people from his dying planet to Earth. But the rescue mission is not going as planned...A very short and concentrated novel of Newton's rise and fall, set in the far future of 1985-1990. If anything, it is too short: there is hardly any time for anything to happen. I liked the descriptions of Newton going native, but I would have liked to see more of him as an alien. (I have no idea how it compares to the film starring David Bowie; although I've had it on video for years I never found the time to watch it.)Apparently, the original edition was set in 1972-76; Tevis changed the years for this edition, and revised some other parts of the text (e.g. adding a reference to Watergate). I guess this was done to coincide with the film.

[saroz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant. This a deceptively simple story, told in simple, uncomplicated prose, but with unexpected depth and relevance. It might come off as slightly trite now, as with most mid-20th century fiction set in "the near future" (the late 1980s, of all things!), but I'm sure in 1963 it was truly a sign of the times. What I'm sure hasn't lost its charge over the years is the tint of sadness, of individualized despair, that permeates the book and ultimately embitters the characters. No one escapes their self-destructive fears - not the American government, not the curious scientist, and most especially not the titular visitor who comes to save his world but can't even save himself. The film version, starring David Bowie, is far more surreal and symbolically charged (and, as with any Nicholas Roeg film, obsessed with sexuality), but the plot is almost completely the same, and anyone who enjoys one version of the tale should enjoy the other. Definitely worth seeking out.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Long time ago I think I read the book.  Longer time ago I saw the movie... kinda (I was on a date, and distracted).  So I basically know the premise.  And the plot isn't much more than the basic premise, really.  The story is all about the feelings of the characters, and the writing style.  I think.

I say I think... because the only thing I could think about while reading this is the fact that the descriptions of the Anthean were written as if Tevis already knew David Bowie and knew that the artist would be willing to act in a movie of Tevis's book.  Which is of course unlikely as the book was written in 1963 and Space Oddity is from 1969.  I have no idea if the book is any good.  In fact, I don't know if the movie is any good (the bits on youtube make me suspect not).  But Bowie's performance is probably tremendous.

I have enjoyed Tevis's Mockingbird (I think) and wish I were interested in his other books' subjects so I were sufficiently motivated to read them.

Oh, and there was a lot of alcohol in this.  I guess lots of the pages were actually 'Gin is awful' 'Is he drunk' 'Drinking in the morning is better cuz you have more control' 'Humans are interesting because they've invented this means to enjoy a pleasant relaxing buzz' and 'Gin is now my drink of choice.'

[lyndatrue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was astonished to see this copy of this rara avis. While David Bowie did decent work in the movie based on this book, there was a subsequent remake which should have caused Tevis to rise up from his grave and smite down the desecrators.I don't think Tevis is an author who can be categorized (Wikipedia entry to the contrary), and this visionary book stands on its own. Best read from the vantage point of then (1963) rather than now.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An alien lands in Kentucky from Anthea with half a dozen gold rings in his pocket and a plan. His body is trial, his bones birdlike. He is fragile, but approaches a lawyer with dozens of patentable inventions that will very quickly make him very rich. This book presents a science fiction in a simple straightforward way. The clean prose reveals more about the loneliness of ordinary life than the strangeness of this alien in humanities midst. What is strange seems so ordinary and what we accept as ordinary seems so strange. It's a lovely exploration of an alien among us, so real it almost becomes a metaphor for our own alienation in the world. Both beautiful and sad.

[M. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A little like Vonnegut without the poetry. Dated but in an interesting way. Shed a tear for the emptiness of mankind.

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An ET from our solar system comes to earth hoping convince humans to avoid nuclear war. A clever rendition of an ET.

[mahsdad · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Newton is a alien who comes to Earth to help save his dying planet. He comes with all his advanced knowledge, lives among us and becomes a rich industrialist, building technologies that will allow him to build a rescue ship to save his wife and the survivors. But "human" foibles, alcoholism, and the government gets in his way to thwart his plans. A very beautiful book, I'm glad I read it.It was the basis of the David Bowie movie in 1976 and Showtime series starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. I want to read more of his stuff. He wrote 6 novels, 4 of which have been movies or shows. This, plus The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Queen's Gambit

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thomas J Newton, came from another planet in human form to make a lot of money and build a spaceship but did he want to save the Earth or destroy it?Walter Tevis wrote this book in 1963, and in today's digital age some of Newton’s revolutionary inventions are rather dated – new types of camera film stock, amplifiers and a new way of petrol refining but this book is really about alienation and loneliness rather than great technological advances. Newton comes to realise that he will never see his home planet or family ever again.The 1960's was the height of the Cold War and consequently and the world's main concern was the fear of Nuclear War (Mutually Assured Destruction) and whilst today that fear has lessened the book in the age of global warming is still relevant, where today the main fear is global warming. Newton has already seen what war has done to his own planet, where its natural resources have either been exhausted or severely degraded. He can't believe the seemingly unlimited availability of water and his appreciation of a simple glass of pure water is unfortunately shared by many on our own planet, particularly in Africa, today. The ending is very sad. Newton potentially has much to offer the Earth but finishes up a blind, lonely, disillusioned “man”. Newton comes to realise that he will never go back home and is unsure even if he wants to. The US Government locks him up in a detention centre but when he refuses to help them develop new weapons, they don't know what to do with him and simply releases him despite him having the knowledge, skills and experience to help in other ways. In our troubled times where so many people are migrating from one country to another for various reasons this gives it added relevance. A study not just of an alien, but also alienation. Now I should point out that I'm not really a Sci-Fi fan, but I don't think that you have to be to get something out of it. Yet somehow, I also felt that there was something missing and it failed to really grip me. But I would still recommend others giving it a go, my copy only had some 96 pages so it's possible to read in one sitting.

[burritapal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An incredibly sad book, and oh-so-well written.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An alien comes, alone, to Earth. He lands in Kentucky and begins the process of making money to bring other survivors from Althea to save people from themselves.I enjoyed the technologies he brings--and patents and sells--and the way he integrates himself into society. I also liked the physical differences between himself and humans, though I was a bit confused, it sounded like Altheans or humans are actually a split from the other? The best parts, though, were in his emotional state. Loneliness and secretiveness can wear anyone down, despite the research and prep done in advance.So--interesting and well considered, but I wanted more from the ending.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those rare cases where I’ve seen the film – several times – before I read the book. And the film isn’t exactly a faithful adaptation. It covers the main points, but the movie is very much about its visuals and the book is just a bog-standard early 1960s sf novel that’s actually set in the early 1960s. Which at least means mean wearing hats is plausible. The title character is Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from Anthea – implied to be Mars – who has infiltrated Earth – ie, the US – in order to save his home world. He introduces technological innovations from his planet and so makes a vast fortune, which he uses to build a spaceship. But the government are suspicious and eventually arrest him. The CIA uncover his secret, but they keep it from the FBI, who bungle their investigation and blind Newton. The point of the book is that Newton is discovered. And despite a long list of technological innovations introduced by Newton, the government still manages to fuck things up. I’m surprised this was considered a shocking perspective in 1963, especially in the US, a nation famous for its distrust of its government (to be fair, for good reason). But the idea of an alien not being an actual evil invader seems to have struck US sf fans as something, well, entirely novel. Seriously? That says more about US sf fandom than it does this book. Which is otherwise ordinary, and you would be better off watching the film as it’s more rewarding.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very rarely is there a book that has been so perfect. One of the very few times where every word, every scene, every bit of dialog was exactly where it should be.
This is a deceptively simple story, told in uncomplicated prose, but with unexpected depth and relevance. What I'm sure hasn't been lost over the years is the wash of sadness, and the individualized despair that permeates the book, and ultimately embitters the characters. No one escapes their self-destructive fears - not the American government, not the curious scientist, and most especially not the other-worldly visitor who comes to save his world but can't even save himself. Definitely worth seeking out. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars

[ragwaine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cool but I'm not sure why the alien didn't save his people. I'm sure that's a major part of the book too. Aged well.

[currerbell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What I've read is the Kindle eBook, and it's got significant revisions from the original 1963 edition. I rate the version I read at 3½*** but maybe the original is better.