I’m starting my current 100-book challenge with
Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras. This is a 1953 fixup novel collecting a series of stories about super-intelligent children born to the survivors of a 1938 atomic power test disaster. Shiras’ work is repeatedly cited as a likely but not confirmed inspiration for the X-Men: the first part, the novella “In Hiding”, was published in Astounding in 1948, and Lee and Kirby were both reading it then. We can and therefore should see Claremontesque foreshadowing of Claremont’s run in Shiras being a woman. (Likely, Stan and Jack no more suspected someone named Wilmar was a woman than I did until reading an article about her and other female authors of the era, a few years ago.)
These are good stories. Very much of their time - the odds of heroic psychiatrists in a modern version are low. But they’re not just declared heroes. They’re good people, astute, sympathetic observers who recognize the super-intelligent teenagers for what they are and see it as their duty to help them find a safe place in which to mature and flourish, using their talents for the good of others and fulfilling their potential. This is, to put it mildly, not a bad dream to be reminded of. And there genuinely well-written passages and interesting characters. The youths aren’t carbon copies of each other, with wide-ranging interests but without any omni-competence. They have very different views of the world, and not all are altogether sane.
This is a very enjoyable read, and as much about the triumph of humane good will as, say, The Goblin Emperor. I’m deeply pessimistic in many ways, but I like to revisit lodestones of optimism from time. We
can be marvelous together, even though we often aren’t.
Oh, also, a cover that’s been a favorite of mine since my own teens. This is the era:
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(Cat breeding for unique combinations of traits is a significant plotline through all theee points.)
