Homo Superior

ODD JOHN -- Olaf Stapledon -- Button ($2).

Odd was the right word for John. An 11-months' baby, he still looked like a foetus when he was born, had to be incubated. His parents soon found him a precocious handful, gradually came to the conclusion that John was a being superior to the normal. Because he needed money for his private schemes, he turned burglar at a tender age, committed his first murder at the age of 9 (self-defense: the policeman had caught him red-handed). He sold many an invention, cleaned up in the stockmarket before he was well into his teens. Unwary adults, engaging him in conversation, wished they had not. John matured so fast and far that before he was adolescent he had outstripped all ordinary human beings.

Lonely, fearing he was the only one of his kind on earth, John went off to the Scottish Highlands to think things over. There he learned to live like a savage, learned also how to add a cubit to his spiritual stature. When he came back to civilization he was able to communicate telepathically with other superior human beings like himself. Most of the older ones were in insane asylums. But gradually John collected a motley little band of superior children, took them off to an uncharted Pacific island to found a real civilization. Before they could do much for the rest of the world their hiding place was discovered, and the colony came to a tragic end.

Readers whom pseudo-scientific thrillers make mad should not attempt Odd John. Those who like Jules Verne, Rider Haggard, the early H. G. Wells, may safely try it.

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