HENDERSON, Zenna

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NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961. First edition. 8vo. Red cloth; dust jacket. 239pp. Minor shelfwear, light toning to textblock edges, else near fine. In a very good price-clipp ed jacket showing partial fading to the red spine text, a ½” closed tear and related creases at top of front panel, and a 1” closed tear to rear panel. The first collection of Henderson’s stories (in the form of a fix-up novel) about a race of aliens who are forced to emigrate to Earth following the destruction of their homeworld. Virtually indistinguishable from humans, though endowed with telepathy and other extraordinary abilities, generations of “The People” must struggle to preserve their culture while escaping detection and blending in with their new environment. A unique and powerful utopian vision, exploring themes far more subtle—religious intolerance, cultural trauma, the power of empathy—than those at play in most science fiction of the time. Show more