Project Gutenberg
2010-02-25
Public domain in the USA.
93
Wilson, Richard
1920
1987
Wilson, Dick
Halibut, Edward
Ashman, William
Ashman
Ashman, Bill
The Inhabited
Produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1953.
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
"The Inhabited" by Richard Wilson is a science fiction novella written in the early 1950s. The story revolves around an extraterrestrial traveler sent to Earth by a dying race, seeking a new world suitable for habitation. The theme explores concepts of identity, control, and the consequences of a stagnant civilization. The narrative follows a nameless alien who becomes a "spy" by inhabiting various beings on Earth, starting with a cat and then progressing through the minds of humans. Through these experiences, the traveler grapples with their inability to control the minds they enter, ultimately finding themselves trapped in the psyche of a mentally ill man named Mersey. As Mersey articulates the dire state of his original civilization, the alien realizes that their race's survival might come at a cost that compromises their identity. The story culminates in a poignant struggle between the needs of the traveler’s people and the realities of life on Earth, leaving readers to ponder the implications of empathy, existence, and the quest for a new home. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Reading ease score: 75.1 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read.
en
Science fiction
Short stories
Human-alien encounters -- Fiction
PS
Text
Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy
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