Science Fiction

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 4

Science Fiction

The X Factor. By Andre Norton. Gollancz. 191 pp. Although rather superior to such earlier novels as “Night of Masks,” Mist Norton’s "The X Factor” is a confusing novel, both in status and intent It opens like a Juvenile novel, with a youth who is unable to fit satisfactorily into the society he is born in, and who finds fulfilment on a different world through his own special talents; but unlike "Night of Masks,” it does not remain consistent to the general pattern of Juvenile novels. The theme, which is at least partly worked out as the book proceeds, has consequences and ramifications that children could not be expected to grasp. Diskan Fentress, a mutant child, has excessive strength in a poorly coordinated body. His feelings of inadequacy drive him to steal a spaceship and flee to an unknown planet, where he finds that he can communicate by telepathy with the furred natives. In time, with the aid of his “Brothers-in-Fur,” he plays an important role in restoring an ancient but dying culture. The nature of this culture, and the precise role played by Diskan in its restoration, is not, however, very clear. The whole episode is related by Miss Norton as a form of mystical experience, which she can describe only inadequately, but cannot explain. And this is the major failing of the work, for Miss Norton falls to communicate this experience clearly enough for the reader to grasp it. Yet this does not, surprisingly, completely destroy the interest of this rather minor work.