Address Centauri

by F.L. Wallace

In a future age of Inter-Planetary travel new world's and alien races are awaiting discovery and a decision must be made. Who will be the first Inter-Stellar explorers to make alien contact? On a tiny asteroid between Mars and Jupiter a tiny handful of people seek the honor. They are "the accidentals." They are pathetic, crippled, and deformed humans, half or quarter men and women, fractional organisms masquerading as people. To many they are just "circus freaks", but to them they are members of the human race and set out to change mankind forever.

Genres: Science Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

F. L. Wallace, sometimes credited as Floyd Wallace, was a noted science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1915, and died in Tustin, California, in 2004. Wallace spent most of his life in California as a writer and mechanical engineer after attending the University of Iowa.

His first published story, "Hideaway," appeared in the magazine Astounding. Galaxy Science Fiction and other science fiction magazines published subsequent stories of his including "Delay in Transit," "Bolden's Pets," and "Tangle Hold." His mystery works include "Driving Lesson," a second-prize winner in the twelfth annual short story contest held by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. His novel, Address: Centauri, was published by Gnome Press in 1955. His works have been translated into numerous languages and his stories are available today around the world in anthologies.

Reviews

[Kimberly Karalius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely LOVED this book!!!! The characters were delightfully quirky and even though the cast kept expanding, every character had his or her own personality. Docchi was my fav of course. Also, I was surprised to find out that most of the characters ended up falling in love and pairing off! How cool is that? I’m a shipper at heart, so I was geeking out so hard as I watched each couple come together. Not going to spoil who ends up with who.

So, I need this book to become a movie. It’s like The Greatest Showman in space!

[Akrabar · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book. hard to imagine this was written in the 50s

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing story that starts poorly and delivers quite the reward by the time it ends. I wrote previously I'm studying Golden Age SF (for those who don't know, Gutenberg.org is a goldmine of older works) and picked this because it fit the criteria. It's also the first book I've read from that era that could use some editing, albeit only in the first three chapters. It almost reads as if Wallace had a really good idea and didn't know how to get it started, hence the story wanders a bit and is exposition heavy.
The premise is simple and explained with an editor's comment at the end (in the version I read): Imagine a world where Columbus's ships were manned by circus freaks. Now place this idea in space. A group of humans who've suffered various kinds of accidents are relegated to a hospital asteroid. They want to be reintegrated into society but society has no room for them. Aside from their bizarre appearances they are all normal, functioning people with normal functioning minds and emotions. One of them discovers a gravity drive and they decide to pilot the asteroid to a different star system in the hopes of finding a planet to call their own.
Simple when stated as such, and Wallace does an amazing job once he gets going. Man v Man, Man v Nature, and Man v Self are three themes woven into the story. Each hospitalized character, while freakish externally, are deeply human and become increasingly human externally as the story progresses.
Story aside and as mentioned above, Wallace demonstrates solid craftsmanship once he gets going. People interested in a good story are well served by Address: Centauri, and people interested in learning craft, learn what makes the first three chapters weak and what makes the rest of the book strong.

[Cheryl]

gutenberg 165 pp Galaxy pulp mmpb $.35
testing for Dave.
Is this, or is Accidental Flight, the short story version? Is the shorter or longer version better? Or are they two different stories altogether?
Both, and others, are all avl. on PG.
Or maybe Dave will get to read them first....

Ok Dave says the short story was revised to be the first story in this, the book collection.

[Emilie]

Actually read a Project Gutenberg version of this edition. It's rather hard for me to judge the book at this point in time. A character in the book or an omniscient author comment reflects that the era of the freakshow is over. People too disabled to blend into a society of beautiful people are exiled to an asteroid. They don't take their exile happily, and some plan to make a break for it, to go in search of another planet. Adventures ensue. Given the premises of what accidents happened to the main characters, their abilities are relatively logical. The reader must suspend much disbelief, of course, but I enjoyed that the main disabled characters had agency and worked together.