he first three chapters of this novel appeared as short stories in Astounding magazine during the 1950s, and the other sections of this fixup are equally episodic in nature, so it makes sense to discuss in pieces what is ostensibly—and, ultimately, successfully—a novel.
The first bit is titled "In Hiding," and concerns an adolescent "problem child" named Timothy Paul. When school psychologist Dr. Peter Welles is given the assignment of counseling Tim, he soon finds out the strange truth. Tim is a supergenius, off the high end of the IQ spectrum. He's a mutant whose parents were blasted by radiation prior to his conception and their eventual death. Tim has been masquerading as a normal boy. But in reality he's a published author and expert experimenter. And there are others like him, scattered around the nation, struggling to fit in. The story ends with Dr. Welles realizing that the proper raising of Tim and his kind will now become his life's work.
In "Opening Doors," Tim and Dr. Welles began to make contact with the scattered children. Their first real hit is a girl named Elsie, who resides in a mental asylum. When Dr. Welles meets her, he finds her eminently sane, simply having chosen a peculiar "hiding place" of her own. Welles also enlists the help of the asylum's head, Dr. Mark Foxwell. Elsie is eventually freed and comes to live in Tim's hometown. And it's then that a plan is born: to form an academy for their kind, with Welles and Foxwell at the head.
By the end of the third segment, "New Foundations," more children are onboard, and the plans for the school are well underway. "Problems" finds the school officially launched. But not every one of the swelling corps of mutant geniuses is able to integrate as well as Tim and Elsie, and certain personality struggles ensue. Meanwhile, the children begin to truly flex their mentalities for the first time. Finally, in "Children of the Atom," the school's nature leaks out to the public, with results that force a reappraisal of the whole scheme.
The atom has many children
Science fiction is filled with one-hit wonders, and this novel by Shiras counts as one of the finest and most beloved in that category. (And it's back in print in a gorgeous deluxe slipcased edition, thanks to Red Jacket Press.) It's easy on the surface to see why SF fandom loves this book so much: It's the fairy tale we all believe about ourselves. Different from the common herd, neglected, ridiculed, ignored, only to triumph when allied with others of our kind. But if this kind of pandering was all that the novel offered, it never would have survived so long, with such high acclaim.
What we find here is an inventive updating of Stapledon's famous Odd John (1935) in very sensitive, unsentimental terms, with the addition of a sense of community, a benefit that Stapledon's protagonist never got to fully experience. Shiras tells her story in simple yet affecting prose, a kind of blend of Sturgeon and Simak. She is very careful to distinguish all her superkids individually, granting them different interests and talents. The interaction between kids and adults and among the kids rings true as well. There are moments—such as the emotionally blocked genius Fred learning to love a puppy—that bring unforced tears to the reader's eyes.
Moreover, Shiras had the strength of vision not to tart up her story. There are no psionic powers, just sheer intellect at work here. There's no melodrama, even down to the ending, which involves a bigoted preacher. This is the calmest, most rational yet still emotional saga one could imagine—and all the more powerful for its restraint.
Shiras might be flawed insofar as she privileges the writing of books as a sign of intelligence. Almost all the kids are secretly best-selling authors. But even this quirk has its charms, providing lots of good chuckles when the pen names are disclosed. Also, as expected from the period, there's zero explicit sexual attraction or hijinks among the teens, although even this angle is mildly hinted at. No, all in all, Shiras brings off a portrait of genius, its adaptation to the world and its appreciation by right-minded "normals" that rings true and touching in every aspect.
