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The Eyes Have It
The Eyes Have It
ttle whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way….
Book Excerpt
The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properties, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything--and was taking it in his stride. The line (and I tremble remembering it even now) read:
... his eyes slowly roved about the room.
Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.
... his eyes moved from person to person.
There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own.
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Readers reviews
2.3
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One star is *way* too generous for this non-story.
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The main character discovers a race of aliens living among us by reading a novel he found abandoned. It's a one-joke story, but Dick does a nice job of setting it up, drawing it out a bit, then ending the story before it goes on too long. This is funny, rather than dystopian.
03/07/2012
Phillip K Dick. a master. (mostly). The invading race of aliens herein should be called idioms. Brush up on your anatomy metaphors; you know, "he gave her his hand in marriage etc." In this short story the "ayes" unfortunately don't have it. Maybe you should let yours wander elsewhere, although a 3 minute read won't make them too bloodshot, or have you "seeing things"....
03/06/2010