COMMAND PERFORMANCE (November 1952) was Miller’s second and final contribution to GALAXY and appeared less than two years after his first sale, SECRET OF THE DEATH DOME, to AMAZING STORIES. An uncomfortable speculation on the true nature and penalty of telepathy, it shows his characteristic thoroughness and depth and is in fact a story whose central theme (and conclusion) were appropriated in the decades to come by many writers. Its female protagonist, able to read the minds of others, has always felt herself to be solitary in her gift; she learns that she is not and the consequences of that knowledge are managed with a remorselessness which was always central to Miller’s work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1922-1997) was the author of the Hugo winning novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1960) generally regarded as one of the ten finest works to ever emerge from the genre. Like Joseph Heller, Miller was a WWII combat flier who was severely damaged by his horrific experiences; he became a journalist and published prolifically over the decade of the 1950’s, then went silent for his last forty years. (An uncompleted expensively contracted semi-sequel to A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ was finished off by Terry Bisson after Miller’s death and published unsuccessfully by Bantam Books.) Miller published approximately 40 magazine stories and the one novel in the 1950’s, some of the stories are regarded as monuments to the genre. His novella, THE DARFSTELLAR, published in ASTOUNDING’s January 1955 issue, won the Hugo as did CANTICLE half a decade later for best novel. Miller’s other contribution to GALAXY, CONDITIONALLY HUMAN, appeared nine months earlier than COMMAND PERFORMANCE and is regarded equally highly. Miller’s personal involvement with the science fiction community was embittering and disastrous; a well publicized affair with Judith Merril, then Frederik Pohl’s wife, wrecked her marriage and damaged his, and he abandoned any involvement with that community in the mid-fifties, living as a near recluse. Miller later committed suicide by gunshot.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Horace Gold led GALAXY magazine from its first issue dated October 1950 to science fiction’s most admired, widely circulated and influential magazine throughout its initial decade. Its legendary importance came from publication of full length novels, novellas and novelettes. GALAXY published nearly every giant in the science fiction field.
The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of GALAXY with new forewords by some of today’s best science fiction writers. The initial selections in alphabetical order include work by Ray Bradbury, Frederic Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Scheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Phillip Klass) and Kurt Vonnegut with new Forewords by Paul di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit GALAXY magazine and its founding editor Horace Gold.
