James Nicoll Reviews

Doris Piserchia’s 1977 Earthchild is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

One day, while Reee — two syllables — and her mother were foraging for food in the strange and hostile ecology of a far future Earth, Reee’s mother fell for an obvious trap and was carried off by Martians. As she was just four years old, Reee should have perished at the teeth and claws of bizarre predators. Fortunately for Reee, Emeroo intervened.

But first! Some necessary background exposition.

Martians are human, descendants of refugees from an increasingly alien Earth. While there are many aspects of Earth that would be challenging to humans, the most important one is Indigo, a vast, many-shaped, all-consuming blue entity currently doing its best to assimilate every bit of biological material on Earth. Precisely what Emeroo may be is unclear, but the secretive green shapeshifter is secretive, opposed to Indigo, and willing to invest years protecting and raising Reee.

Mars provided its colonists with safe haven. However, even if the entire population works as hard as it can, the planet is only marginally habitable. Life on Mars has had unfortunate effects on the psyche of the humans living there. The two elements of this most relevant to Reee are the Martian determination to rescueevery human it can from Earth to shore up its own labour pool and the sustained and utterly futile efforts to somehow kill Indigo. Reee does not care to be kidnapped, nor would she like to be collateral damage in the latest Martian terraforming gambit. 

This weird Earth is the only home Reee has ever known and it seems perfectly reasonable to her. She spends her days dispatching what she calls ​“blue boys” — Indigo’s simulacra, used to bait the unwary — while dodging rescue attempts and sabotaging Martian attempts to retrieve blue boys, whom they take for humans remaining on lost Earth. Nothing good would come of Indigo getting a foothold on Mars or of Reee travelling there herself.

However, to stay free and on Earth, Reee must elude the Martians. The Martians only have to get lucky once. Too bad for Reee but much, much worse for Mars.

~oOo~

The 1970s are known for their lurid, misleading covers, promising bare-breasted women and delivering Campbell-fodder stories about asteroid mining.

In this case the cover artist is Michael Whelan. Whelan clearly read the novel whose cover he created. Every element in the cover art exists within the story. Nevertheless, readers should not expect endless eroticism because frankly, that is not Reee’s thing. Reee spends far too much time being frustrated with other people to be attracted to them.

Readers should also not expect anything resembling a coherent plot. This is more a tour of the Weird Earth random-encounter table. The lack of structure is not enhanced by the five-hundred-year hibernation forced on Reee at one point. 

Likewise, while there was room to explore whether the blue boys are, as they insist, actual people, or as Reee insists, mere puppet extensions of Indigo, Reee is uninterested in examining the question. Nor, as is typical of brief Disco Era paperbacks, are any of the characters any more than sketchy outlines.

That said, Piserchia’s vision of the Earth is vivid, strange, and memorable. As long as one is happy to settle for a stroboscopic exploration of the bizarre Earth and unpleasant Mars of tomorrow, this may be the book for you! 

Earthchild is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), and here (Chapters-Indigo). I did not find it at Book Depository.