Chad Oliver in the 1950’s.
Today, March 30, is the birthday of Chad Oliver (1928-1993). Oliver didn’t leave a large body of work. He pursued an academic career in anthropology. And it’s this back ground that made his best work stand out.
I met him briefly a year or three before his death at one of the first Armadillocons I attended. He was friendly and outgoing.
Today’s story is “Let me Live in a House”, which was first published in the March 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction. It is currently available in Far From This Earth Selected Stories of Chad Oliver Volume 2. It is available in electronic form, and I think the NESFA hardcover edition is still in print.
In this story two couples are living next door to each other in cottages with green lawns and picket fences. On Ganymede.
They’re part of a project to show people can adapt to space exploration. The central character, Gordon, wants the project to succeed, but there is a lot of resistance on Earth to the idea of space travel .
Then an alien arrives. Or does he? I found the ending a little ambiguous. Did Gordon and the others crack up and imagine there was an alien? I think there was, but Oliver left just enough doubt in my mind.
I’ll be reading more of Chad Oliver in the future.
