Robert Wack

Since this is the first of many blog posts about writing generally, and science fiction particularly, perhaps it’s appropriate to start at my beginning with the genre. Although I’m sure there were other books before, the first sci-fi novel that I remember to this day as making a deep impression on me is Andre Norton’s Daybreak: 2250 A.D.

Andre Norton was born Alice Mary Norton in 1912, and she legally adopted the pen name Andre when she began publishing fantasy novels for the YA market back in 1934. Her first published sci-fi was a short story under the pen name “Andre North” in 1947 (don’t worry, strong women in my life, there will be more to come about the struggles faced by aspiring professional women). 

She was there at the beginning, a significant female pioneer, now referred to as the Grande Dame of Science Fiction, influencing multiple generations of readers and writers. Wikipedia has a detailed write up.  Of note, until she became a full-time writer in 1958 (after having published 21 NOVELS!!!) she worked as a librarian in the Cleveland area (yes, it rocks), the kind who fights for books, something I greatly respect and admire. She shared in an interview once that she had to fight to get The Hobbit on the shelves. 

Keep in mind, I knew none of this when my brother Tom handed me this book, probably when I was in 4^th grade. He was a freshman at Good Counsel High school, and he and my brother Dan were a conduit for all sorts of cool books coming into the house. I was intrigued by the cover, the ruins, the raft, the menacing cat creature.  I read it a million times.  It connected with me, deeply.

It is the story of Fors, the son of a Star Man, survivors of nuclear war holed up in the mountains of the north. Because of his white hair and suspected mutant abilities, Fors is rejected from promotion in his community and runs away. He journeys to a fabled ruined city and meets Arskane, a “dark-skinned” man from the South who Fors rescues from a trap laid by the mutant Beast Things who roam the ruined cities like rat-human hybrids. The two form a bond, hijinks ensue, ending with a big battle and redemption for Fors, a perfect Hero’s Journey tale for a nuclear war anxious grade school boy.

This would have been around 1970, still in the thick of Cold War nuclear angst, which we lived and breathed in our suburban home outside Washington D.C. My father was deep in the world of nuclear weapons, having worked on a variety of projects with names like Lulu and Hotpoint, culminating with the Polaris missile. He went on to develop a variety of innovative weapons systems like one of the first hypersonic missiles (Zap) and the fuzing for the Harpoon cruise missile.

Needless to say, this did nothing to constrain the usual little boy fascination with blowing things up. “My dad builds missiles!” was an instant ice breaker on the playground. But we were also marinating in the pervasive anxiety of the day, which, looking back, shaped us in ways we’re still trying to understand.

I certainly picked up on it, and I asked my dad a lot of questions, which, to his credit, he usually answered truthfully. One that I remember clearly to this day was when I asked why we didn’t have a bomb shelter, like some of our neighbors:

“Because if D.C. gets hit, we won’t want to survive.”

“Wut?”

“Anyone around here in a bomb shelter will also die, they’ll just do it slowly, maybe weeks later, from starvation, suffocation, or radiation sickness.” (sorry, Peter and Sheila…)

Keep in mind, this is little grade school me having this conversation. At some point, he shared with me an early edition of “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” for some light, bedtime reading, an example of the weapons literature cornucopia we grew up with. I immersed myself in blast radius data, flash burns, and casualty estimates. Good times.

So what does this have to do with the impact on me of Andre Norton and Daybreak? Her story was a comfort, a message to me from my librarian muse that it would be okay; that even if the cities were incinerated, a boy could become a young man who could have adventures with his badass telepathic mutant cat, make friends, and prevail against the things in the dark. Again, none of this occurred to me at the time, or even deep into adulthood, until my own children began chastising my brothers and me for endlessly rehashing our apocalyptic anxieties at family gatherings, thinly disguised as movie reviews and book conversations.

Andre Norton was telling all of us, it’s going to be okay.