Infinite Intruder

Nourse, Alan Edward, 1928-1992Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 56K words
Chapters: 6

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Infinite Intruder by Alan Edward NourseAuthor: Nourse, Alan Edward, 1928-1992,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 8, 2010

Editor's review

Infinite Intruder is a science fiction work by Alan E. Nourse published in the mid-twentieth century, belonging to the short-story tradition that followed the Golden Age of American science fiction. Nourse was a physician by training, a background that often lent his science fiction a sensitivity to physiology, psychology, and scientific ethics. This story takes "the intruder" as its central image and is well suited to reading from the perspective of genre history. The work is short and tightly paced, making it a good sample for understanding the style of postwar American science fiction magazines. Readers should not expect an expansive worldbuilding but should focus on its suspense construction and its handling of "the other." The public-domain electronic edition allows for a quick read-through and is also suitable for excerpt-based classroom discussion. For readers familiar with Golden Age science fiction, it is a light supplementary read; for those encountering the period for the first time, it can serve as one of the introductory short stories.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy mid-twentieth-century American science fiction short stories
Genre fiction fans who want to understand magazine style after the Golden Age of science fiction
Readers with intermediate or better English reading ability who prefer fast-paced short stories
Science fiction course instructors, who can use it for excerpt discussion or as a supplement to genre history

Not a good fit for

Hard science fiction readers who prefer long works with expansive worldbuilding and complex settings
Readers sensitive to the narrative pacing and gender attitudes of older science fiction
Beginners who struggle with English reading and need sentence-by-sentence translation support

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the direction of the suspense, then go back to the foreshadowing at key turning points.
Read it alongside other postwar science fiction short stories to observe common treatments of the "intruder" motif.
After reading, note how "the other" is portrayed as an entry point for genre analysis.
If used in class, select the opening and closing passages for comparison and discuss the control of narrative pacing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this work a novel or a short story?

Judging from how the public-domain electronic edition is presented and from Nourse's writing habits, this is a short science fiction work suitable for reading in one sitting. For the exact word count, refer to the actual text; readers need not approach it with the expectations of a novel.

What is noteworthy about the author Nourse's background?

Alan E. Nourse was American, medically trained, and a writer. This background is often thought to have influenced the attention to scientific ethics and character psychology in his science fiction. Readers may watch for related details in the text on this basis, but should not overinterpret.

Is it suitable for understanding the Golden Age of science fiction?

It can serve as a supplementary sample. It was published within the magazine science fiction lineage after the Golden Age and stylistically continues the short-story suspense tradition. For a systematic understanding, it is advisable to also read more representative works by writers of the period and compare them.

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About the author

Nourse, Alan Edward, 1928-1992 Author

Alan Edward Nourse (1928-1992) is a science fiction author with 24 works held in this collection, though public information about him is limited and biographical details remain to be filled in. Judging from the available titles, he wrote both novels and short stories, often centering on space exploration, medical ethics, and the risks of technology: titles such as Star Surgeon and Brightside Crossing suggest an interest in the intersection of interstellar travel and surgery, while An Ounce of Cure, Consignment, and Marley's Chain reveal a cool scrutiny of technological consequences. He was skilled at carrying speculation through tight plotting, placing ordinary people in extreme situations and using professional detail to heighten realism. Some short pieces, such as Meeting of the Board, adopt a satirical tone, showing that his style was not monolithic. His work had some influence among mid-twentieth-century English-language science fiction readers, but details of awards and sales cannot be verified and are therefore not speculated upon.