I myself have no problem with lengthy periods of enforced isolation. There are so many things to do: alphabetizing the house spiders, teaching cats to dance, talking with my knives… Still, not everyone deals with isolation well. If that’s you, you might derive some consolation from reading (or watching, or listening to) stories of folks who are even worse off than you are.
“So Said the Lighthouse Keeper” by John Woloschuk
This song is a stark contrast to the title of the 1977 Klaatu concept album Hope1 on which it appeared. The eponymous lighthouse keeper not only provides the perspective from which the grim tale is told, it is the only perspective from which the story could be told, since the lightkeeper’s species managed to annihilate not only themselves, but their world as well. How the keeper survived is not clear—songs short enough to fit onto an album generally can’t fit in a lot of backstory—but survive it did. Now it can look forward to a long solitary life staffing a beacon warning travellers of the orbital debris that remains of the keeper’s world.
[I understand that there is a version of this song in which personified Death assures the keeper there was a point to it all, but that is not the version I had.]
***
ORA:CLE by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. (1984)
Faced with soaring carbon dioxide levels, the Coalition provided its citizens with an ongoing lockdown aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions. A lucky few may be important enough to travel. Ale and his wife Emdy are not among the lucky. They can expect to enjoy sequestration in their cozy apartment for the rest of their lives.
On the plus side, those lives may not be terribly long. The technologically superior alien Dax use Earth as its hunting preserve, which the Coalition is too weak to prevent. If being hunted by bored aliens was not enough, Ale narrowly escapes a series of unlikely mishaps. A cynic might wonder if someone in a position of power has decided Ale Knows Too Much. But what on Earth could an academic specializing in the work of an obscure Chinese poet know?
***
The Quiet Earth directed by Geoff Murphy, screenplay by Bill Baer, Bruno Lawrence, & Sam Pillsbury (1985)
Project Flashlight has decisively ended the Cold War. No more will the Free World need to worry about Soviet aggression! Project Flashlight also made almost every living animal on the planet vanish, with very few exceptions. You can’t break eggs without making an omelet! Project scientist Zac Hobson is one of those exceptions. He wakes to find himself seemingly the only human remaining in New Zealand and perhaps, the only one in all the world.
How does he deal with his newfound peace and quiet, not to mention the freedom to do as he likes without any risk of social disapproval? Not well.
***
Mare Internum by Der-shing Helmer (webcomic, 2015 – 2019)
As the story opens, Dr. Mike Fisher has comprehensively sabotaged his career on Mars. As soon as the next transport leaves, he will leave with it. Before that can happen, however, Fisher reluctantly accompanies newcomer Rebekah Egunsola to his field site beneath the Martian surface. When the ceiling caves in, the suicidally depressed Fisher embraces it as an escape. Instead, Fisher is deposited in a previously undiscovered relic ocean hidden deep underground.
Egunsola is nowhere in sight. Instead, the injured Fisher is marooned in an ancient refugia of the once-thriving Martian ecosystem. He is alone amidst disorienting eerie strangeness, at least for the moment. Ample time to really come to grips with the self-destructive self-loathing that had him on the brink of suicide when the webcomic began.
***
But isolation does not have to be bad! Take, for example:
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon (1996)
Sims Bancorp Colony #3245.12 fails. This means temporary disruption for its workers, who will be shipped off to another world. For aged Ofelia, economic calamity is opportunity. Even if she survives the trip to another planet, all that waits there is further years spent as a contract labourer under terms that guarantee lifelong servitude. Why not simply remain behind, and by so doing escape nagging relatives and exploitative corporations? Ofelia is old and may not have many years remaining to her. She can at least spend them as she pleases.
Pity about the aliens…
***
I’ve done enough of these to know that for every example I think of, you can suggest dozens. I am outnumbered! Comments are, as ever, below.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is a four-time finalist for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award and is surprisingly flammable.
[1]Do I need to explain the concept of concept albums? For that matter, we’re all clear on the ancient recording medium known as albums, right?
I have a vague memory of a story of someone being the sole crew member of a one-way probe headed away from the Sun (northward)? The vague memory includes James condemning the story for some reason — cruelty towards the disabled, maybe?
“One”, by George Alec Effinger.
A story I don’t even like thinking about.
That’s View from a Height, which I liked but my Young People were cool on.
https://youngpeoplereadoldsff.com/story/view-from-a-height
I don’t want to be the last person left on the planet or anything, but I’d give a kidney to spend more than an hour alone at this point. A nice long weekend would be good. Quiet and alone are my happy place. I’ve gone days without speaking more than a sentence or two to another person. It’s fine. People who go bananas in isolation always make me think of the first ever Twilight Zone episode Where is Everybody? about some poor astronaut in a solo mission experiment. I enjoyed Remnant Population and I haven’t read any of the others.
The Quiet Earth reminded me of the 1959 movie The World, the Flesh and the Devil, which was itself partially based on a 1901 novel, The Purple Cloud.
No love for Andy Weir? I’m pretty certain that Mark Watney might have a word or two to say about being alone.
Emergence by David Palmer started out with a lone protagonist. And many Andre Norton books would have long stretches where the protagonist was alone.
4: my current record for avoiding speaking with people is 30 straight days before something came up that required conversation.
I just finished re-reading The Man in the Maze by Robert Silverberg. The protagonist puts himself at the heart of an alien maze to get away from humanity. Great novel.
Hooray, two of my favorites are on this list!
Ob. caveat for anybody who hasn’t seen The Quiet Earth: This is one of those rare movies that transcends its source text. The big reveal at the end of the book is (ROT13 for spoilers): gung gur cebgntbavfg vf va Uryy be cbffvoyl va n pbzn; va nal pnfr, rirelguvat ur qbrf vf shgvyr, naq ur fgnegf ntnva ng gur ortvaavat bs gur obbx jvgu ab zrzbel bs jung unccrarq. If you don’t mind abject despair, it is well written–but man what a downer. The movie, while still bleak, ends on a bittersweet note of hope.
Ray Bradbury’s The Silent Towns, from The Martian Chronicles. Walter Gripp finds he isn’t alone enough.
@7,
Hmm- I should read Emergence again.
There’s Vernor Vinge’s Marooned In Realtime, both the victim and the “murderer”.
Silent Running (1972)–directed by Douglas Trumbull. Just Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) and a few droids and a whole lot of plants. I wouldn’t say Lowell deals with the isolation all that well, but it’s a happy ending from the POV of the plants.
LeGuin’s City of Illusions , where Falk is alone and all alonio.
Ora:cle is not one of my favorite Kevin O’Donnell books, but he was a wonderful author, whose name has many happy associations in my mind. It inspires me to mount an expedition into the depths of my basement to see what I can find.
The 2012 German film The Wall shows the loneliness and physical difficulties of isolation after an invisible barrier suddenly traps a woman in an Alpine valley. After a year of trials, she gradually accepts her fate to be forever alone. There is never an explanation of what the barrier is or why she is surrounded by it – or what happened to everyone outside the wall.
Stephen Baxter had four humans survive the end of the Human Age in “Evolution”. That also…didn’t really end all that well. Likewise Russ’ “We Who Are About To…”
@10 Jenny Islander re: The Quiet Earth
Ugh, really? I managed to find a copy of the book after many years but haven’t read it yet. Maybe I’ll wait a while longer.
I saw the movie in a theatre with some friends. We argued over the ending. I think I’ll go listen to the main theme…
Remnant Population is fantastic – it’s also a rare sci-fi book that has an old woman as the protaganist/main viewpoint character.
Other books that come to mind – Empty World by John Christopher stuck in my mind after reading it as a teen. A young man is left alone in a world after a plague wipes out almost the entire population.
On the positive side, here’s Solitude, a short story by Le Guin that explores a culture where aloneness is treasured and nurtured.
There’s the George R.R. Martin short The Second Kind of Loneliness, contrasting solitude with loneliness.
Jenny Islander: Strong agreement on The Quiet Earth surpassing the novel it’s based on.
@@@@@ 10, Jenny Islander:
Ob. caveat for anybody who hasn’t seen The Quiet Earth: This is one of those rare movies that transcends its source text.
I can think of two other examples where the movie is better than the book.
I can’t think of a worse Hemingway book than To Have and Have Not. The movie is miles better.
Charles Beaumont’s The Circus of Dr. Lao was a scattered and mediocre book. 7 Faces of Dr. Lao is a better movie than Beaumont deserved.
As long as someone already mentioned The Twilight Zone, there’s the ever-popular ‘Time Enough At Last‘, reminding us that it’s always important to have a backup pair of specs.
I liked Emergence a lot back in the day, but I haven’t re-read it in decades.
I hope that the Suck Fairy has stayed away.
@24. NomadUK
To this day, I always, ALWAYS have a spare pair of glasses.
Another good story that has a lone and lonely protagonist, Becky Chambers’ A Closed and Common Orbit.
I decided to review Emergence for Sunday and got a little ways in before I remembered to check the copyright. My Sunday reviews cover books I read between 1974 and 1981 and Emergence is 1984. Oh, well. It seemed like a pretty typical novel about a superhuman 11-year-old black belt ultra-genius example of the NEXT STEP IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.
This might have been mentioned.
I remember reading a short story about a station keeper who chosen for his ability to be alone. He goes through a slob period then becomes a neat freak. He was there to watch for aliens. As I recall, the aliens showed up at the end of the story.
I read it 50 years ago, and I remember it was from the golden age of sf.
@19: Watching it again sent me down a special-interest rabbit hole; I ended up working out the ecosystem of the Quiet Earth, which consists of:
* Everything brainless;
* Everything that is brainless, or without coherent brain activity, at some point in its life cycle and doesn’t need to be looked after at any point in its life cycle (with a subsequent filter of “also needs to be able to find food and meet up with reproductive partners”);
* Everything that was dead at the time, got revived, and could survive the immediate aftermath of whatever got it dead (ditto).
It’s an extinction pattern without a real-world precedent.
An older book that I read a few years ago fits the bill: Displaced Person by the Australian writer Lee Harding (published in the US as Misplaced Persons).
I wouldn’t expect anyone to know this one. It’s a slim novel (less than 150 pages), published in 1979 and last re-issued nearly 30 years ago (according to ISFDB), and targeted at a YA audience.
It’s about a teenager who notices that people around him increasingly ignore him as if he weren’t there. Eventually, people and things start disappearing (IIRC) and what felt like social isolation becomes physical isolation in that there really is nobody left. He tries to find out what’s going on, where everybody is (or where he is).
The concept was interesting but despite the short length the story still felt a little thin. (It’s an expansion of an earlier short story, maybe that’s why.)
Of course, some things happen as the story goes on but I found the conclusion of the story to be quite weak.
Anyway, it did capture the feeling of isolation very well so I thought I’d mention it.
@23: Charles Beaumont did the script; the book was by Charles G. Finney. Not taking any position on quality — I haven’t consumed either — just fixing a fact; Beaumont had an extensive … relationship … with Hollywood and is reported responsible for one of the most notorious quotes about Tinseltown.
@@@@@ 31, CHip:
@@@@@23: Charles Beaumont did the script; the book was by Charles G. Finney. Not taking any position on quality — I haven’t consumed either — just fixing a fact; Beaumont had an extensive … relationship … with Hollywood and is reported responsible for one of the most notorious quotes about Tinseltown.
Thanks, CHip. You’re right of course.
David Gerrold and Larry Neven wrote a book called The Flying Sorcerers. Many of the characters were spoofs of their fellow writers. The lost astronaut’s universal translator rendered his name as—a shade of purple grey—Isaac Asimov. Tizzturgon—Theodore Sturgeon—was the god of love; Elsin—Harlan Ellison—was the god of thunder, lightning, and loud noises.
No love for the classic I Am Legend? Richard Matheson’s story is practically the how-to on crafting isolation and dystopic fiction. The novella has influenced generations of writers.
Sixty-six years after publication and I Am Legend is still an extraordinary, powerful piece of work and sadly more timely than ever.
Fernhunter @@@@@ 23
I can think of two other examples where the movie is better than the book.
There seemed to be a general consensus among critics that Clint Eastwood’s film version of The Bridges of Madison County was better than the original novel. (You also see the same arguments about The Godfather and Jaws, for example. And if Mark Twain’s famous commentary about Fennimore Cooper’s prose is to be trusted, we can probably add Michael Mann’s version of The Last of the Mohicans.)
@@@@@ 34, Peter Erwin:
Fernhunter @@@@@ 23
I can think of two other examples where the movie is better than the book.
There seemed to be a general consensus among critics that Clint Eastwood’s film version of The Bridges of Madison County was better than the original novel. (You also see the same arguments about The Godfather and Jaws, for example. And if Mark Twain’s famous commentary about Fennimore Cooper’s prose is to be trusted, we can probably add Michael Mann’s version of The Last of the Mohicans.)
I haven’t read the first three. So I cannot comment.
As for Mark Twain on The Last of the Mohicans, I don’t trust him. If ever I read a case of special pleading, Twain’s review is it.
Published in a different age, the Leatherstocking stories would be called pulp fiction. Moby Dick they are not. But…
How would Sherlock Holmes fare, if Twain took the same hatchet to him? Doyle tossed off his Holmes tales casually. Sometimes writing one in the middle of a party. Judging by the result, Cooper did much the same. Pulp fiction? Sure. Good reading? Sure.
Twain took more than one literary pet. He also joined the “Shakespeare wasn’t written by Shakespeare, but by another man with the same name” brigade. IIRC he wanted Bacon to bring home the Shakespeare.
In both cases Twain wrote more to entertain than to convince.
Is the The Last of the Mohicans movie better than the book? It’s been so long since I read them, I cannot say. It may well be. Each tells a cracking tale in its own medium.
Someone referenced it, but The Purple Cloud, in which an Arctic expedition somehow triggers the eponymous Purple Cloud of toxic gas,which covers the world..
The Very First Twilight Zone, “Where Is Everybody?” (as I remember the title),in which a man who can’t remember who he is wonders where, um,everyone else is.
Dear Devil, about the sole Martian on a post-nuclear war Earth
Hmmm…..
Grand Solo For Anton by Herbert Rosendorfer.
Published by the great Dedalus Books
“When Anton wakes up one morning and discovers that he is the only person left in the world, he accepts the situation with remarkable ease. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a group secretly searching for ‘The Book’, a text that contains all knowledge of the world. But when he discovers it, he comes to some shocking conclusions.:
@36: I wonder how many TZ and OL episodes used that trope? The award-winning Demon with a Glass Hand may be the most-remembered now, but it would have been an obvious way to hold down costs on series that (from what I read) never got the best support from their network management.