Stefen’s Bookclub – August

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

Our last few books have pretty contemporary and for perhaps a broader readership than most of the books we’ve read. For August however, we’re back to classic science fiction with Walter Tevis‘  1963 book, The Man Who Fell to Earth.

It’s possible that SF film fans may recognize the title from the 1979 film adaptation starring David Bowie. The book and the film are basically the same story.  An alien comes to Earth to discretely gather the equipment and resources to save the last of his people who are stuck on their dying world. His attempts to understand and navigate America in the sixties form the core of the novel and I’m interested in comparing this with the film version and also with Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land which offers another outsiders view of humanity and was written only a couple of years earlier.

A bit of trivia about Walter Tevis. His 1959 book The Hustler was the basis of the classic movie of the same name starring Paul Newman.