Glen Engel-Cox reviewed Nobody's Home by Joanna Russ
Confusing
3 stars
I’m not totally sure I understand this story. In the future, the population has been reduced (doesn’t say how) and people’s intelligences have been enhanced. Matter transmitters allow people to flit over the world, so that they could watch the sunrise 22 times in one day if they wanted to. Work is accomplished by tax, but really, everybody is free to do what they want to do. Monogamous relationships have changed into family groups, that bond and unbond frequently. (The depiction of this hedonism is close to Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time books.) Into the protagonist’s family marries Leslie Smith, who is stupid, i.e., the intelligent equivalent of you and I. She can’t get the jokes of the others, makes mistakes, and doesn’t really have anything going for her. And…that’s the story. I sense that it may have been meant as a condemnation of our current social …
I’m not totally sure I understand this story. In the future, the population has been reduced (doesn’t say how) and people’s intelligences have been enhanced. Matter transmitters allow people to flit over the world, so that they could watch the sunrise 22 times in one day if they wanted to. Work is accomplished by tax, but really, everybody is free to do what they want to do. Monogamous relationships have changed into family groups, that bond and unbond frequently. (The depiction of this hedonism is close to Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time books.) Into the protagonist’s family marries Leslie Smith, who is stupid, i.e., the intelligent equivalent of you and I. She can’t get the jokes of the others, makes mistakes, and doesn’t really have anything going for her. And…that’s the story. I sense that it may have been meant as a condemnation of our current social mores, depicting a utopia that, like any good utopia, always has an unravelling thread. Interesting, but…