The Man Who Fell to Earth

Set in 1985 (22 years from the publication in 1963), the main action of “The Man Who Fell To Earth” is 40 years in the past from my current day 2025. I'd love to talk to someone who read this book closer to publication before actually living through 1985 and subsequent times. How ground-breaking did they find Tevis' vision of the future, where we still have elevator operators and gain a six-hour workday and a Cuban space program.

Changing the point of works well in a sci-fi novel because it adds to the suspense and gives the author a lot of room to maneuver. Tevis changes viewpoints every few chapters and sometimes the author forgets to stay in character. For example, in Chapter 8, Betty Jo, Newton's companion and housekeeper, starts off with a wonderfully accurate Southern twang and then switches to non-idiomatic English for most of her chapter; the reader loses most of her personality and charm.

The book seems to be more of a commentary or allegory on how isolated people are in modern America. And how bureaucracy is blind to the humans (and aliens) under its umbrella. While there are a few references to life on Anthea and physical differences between Antheans and Earthlings, the novel mostly avoids world-building Anthea. Perhaps that's why the main characters are constant fixing or having a drink, as a way to deaden the pain of how alone they feel. Or perhaps the excessive references stem from the author's then alcohol addiction (Tevis didn't publish another book for 17 years after TMWFTE). There were sections of the second Part that I found hazy and nearly incomprehensible (not sure if that was on purpose or not).

I'm not sure I would have read the book if I hadn't recently enjoyed the very well-done 2022 TV series. The show riffs on the ideas in “The Man Who Fell To Earth” and moves the action to the 2020s with Thomas J Newton still alive. The book (and, likely, the 1976 movie version starring David Bowie) act as a prequel for those who are introduced to the story via the recent series.