Review of “Glow Worm” by Harlan Ellison

Available here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67362/67362-h/67362-h.htm

I had never heard of this story itself. I found it more because of the author – I was checking out Harlan Ellison’s work because of “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” and wondered if any of it was in the public domain. Thus, I stumbled upon “Glow Worm”, which was apparently his professional debut.

In this story, Seligman is the last remaining human on Earth. Due to their violent nature, the rest of the humans on Earth have killed themselves, although it would seem other people had previously left Earth and never looked back.

Seligman was one of almost two dozen volunteer soldiers who allowed experimentations to be done on him in the hopes of creating a super soldier. He survived thanks to this, though every other person being tested on died along with everyone else. He’s been wandering around on Earth for two years now, glowing because of radiation and slowly building a spaceship based on what scraps he can find left and his limited knowledge.

Eventually he does take off in the spaceship. It promptly begins falling apart because he really had no knowledge of how to put it together in the first place, but he discovers that not only doesn’t he need food, but he doesn’t even need to breathe air. Over and over again he has been lamenting what he has become because he’s no longer human, and every new aspect like this that he discovers just confirms more and more he’s inhuman.

He intends to go tell the other humans who left that everyone on Earth is dead, although he knows he can’t possibly be welcomed anywhere. It leaves with him still in space on his way.

Even right after reading it I’m not sure what to make of it, and I think that’s due to how short it is. It’s probably around ten to fifteen pages long. I will actually make a comparison to two other pieces of media that have been on my mind lately: “Cast Away” and “The Eye of the Universe”.

“Cast Away” is a well-known 2000 movie where Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, gets stranded on an island for four years before being rescued.

“The Eye of the Universe,” by Matt Waterhouse ( @mattwaterhouseauthor) , is a novel where the unnamed protagonist travels through giant star liner searching for anyone else on the spacecraft that might still be alive. In order to keep himself sane, he brings along the body of a dead man and uses him as a fake companion, even giving him a voice using a computer program and old data logs the man made when he was alive.

“Glow Worm” was written around 1956 and is a precursor to both of these and, I think, may have inspired them indirectly. It especially delves into the idea of extreme loneliness, although Seligman doesn’t create an imaginary companion for himself. Instead, he’s focused on getting to where other people are – and not even because he thinks he’ll be able to live with them.

Though he says it’s to “warn them,” it can easily be imagined that that is an excuse and he’s desperate to see anyone else.

I won’t say it’s written badly at all. It’s a very easy read, but because of its length it can only touch on so many ideas. The two other pieces I mentioned carry on a similar idea to its full length, and so we get a better chance to become attached to those characters. There’s nothing wrong with Seligman, but we know very little about him besides him being a former soldier and someone who volunteered to be experimented on. There’s very little to say about the character. It’s more discussing an overall concept than bringing a character to life.

I would recommend reading this, because it’s a quick read anyway, and then trying “The Eye of the Universe”  as a comparison, to see the concept fleshed out into full length. 

Next time I’ll be reading “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift. Here’s a link if you’d like to read along: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080

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