The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World

Short story by Philip José Farmer
"The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World"
Short story by Philip José Farmer
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Science fiction
Publication
Published inNew Dimensions 1: Fourteen Original Science Fiction Stories
PublisherDoubleday
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Publication date1971

"The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip José Farmer, first published in 1971 in New Dimensions 1: Fourteen Original Science Fiction Stories. The story later formed the basis for Farmer's Dayworld trilogy of novels.[1]

Synopsis

Due to extreme overpopulation of Earth, citizens in the year 2055 are constrained to "stoners" – cylinders that suspend all atomic and subatomic activity in the body – for every day of the week, except for the one to which they are allocated.[1] Tom Pym only experiences Tuesdays, but yearns to contact a beautiful woman, Jennie Marlowe, who awakes only on Wednesdays. He leaves Jennie an audio message, but she responds with the suggestion that he forget about her. To be with Jennie, Tom attempts to have his allocated day changed to Wednesday, but significant government bureaucracy is involved. An influential psychiatrist, Doctor Traurig (German for "sad"), after viewing Jennie's cylinder, agrees that Tom's life would be better on Wednesday, and pushes through his application. However, Tom awakes on Wednesday to find that Jennie's cylinder is missing; she has, in exchange, been relocated to Tuesday.[2]

Reception

Both Terry Carr and Lester del Rey selected "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World" for inclusion on their respective "years-best" short story volumes,[3] making it the only story from the New Dimensions 1 volume to be chosen twice.[3] Mike Ashley writes that the story was not original, but nevertheless topical on first publication.[3] Greenberg et al., in the 1975 anthology Social Problems Through Science Fiction, describe Farmer's story as "sociologically meaningful as well as fascinating reading [...] Farmer does not have a "solution" to the population problem within the usual parameters of proposed answers. He does, however, describe just how different a world inundated by humanity might be."[4] Michael Smith described the story as depicting "perhaps the most extreme example of constrained freedom in an overcrowded future."[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Mary Turzillo Brizzi (1988) Science fiction & fantasy book review annual, Greenwood Publishing Group, p171
  2. ^ Philip José Farmer (1975) "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World," Social Problems Through Science Fiction, ed. Greenberg M.H., Milstead J..W, Olander J.D., and Warrick, P., New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, p23-36
  3. ^ a b c Mike Ashley (2007) Gateways to forever: the story of the science-fiction magazines from 1970 to 1980, Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, p150
  4. ^ Greenberg M.H., Milstead J..W, Olander J.D., and Warrick, P. (1975) "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World," Social Problems Through Science Fiction, New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, p21-22
  5. ^ Michael Smith (1999) "The Short Life of a Dark Prophecy," Fear itself: enemies real & imagined in American culture, Purdue University Press, p346
  • v
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Novels
series
Other
novels
Story
collections
  • Strange Relations (1960)
  • The Alley God (1962)
  • The Celestial Blueprint: And Other Stories (1962)
  • Down in the Black Gang (1971)
  • The Book of Philip José Farmer, or the Wares of Simple Simon’s Custard Pie and Space Man (1973)
  • Riverworld and Other Stories (1979)
  • Riverworld War: The Suppressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980)
  • The Cache (1981)
  • Father to the Stars (1981)
  • Stations of the Nightmare (1982)
  • The Purple Book (1982)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 (1984)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984)
  • The Grand Adventure (1984)
  • Riders of the Purple Wage (1992)
  • Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (2005)
  • The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006)
  • Strange Relations (2006)
  • Pearls from Peoria (2006)
  • Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories (2007)
  • Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (2008)
  • The Other in the Mirror (2009)
  • The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer: Protean Dimensions (2010)
  • Up the Bright River (2010)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul (2011)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012)
  • Tales of the World Newton Universe (2013)
Stories
  • "O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946)
  • "Duo Miaule" (anii 1950)
  • The Lovers (1952)
  • "Sail On! Sail On!" (1952)
  • "The Biological Revolt" (1953)
  • "Mother" (1953)
  • "Moth and Rust" (1953)
  • "Attitudes" (1953)
  • "Strange Compulsion" (1953)
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  • "Daughter" (1954)
  • "Queen of the Deep" (1954)
  • "The God Business" (1954)
  • "Rastignac the Devil" (1954)
  • "The Celestial Blueprint" (1954)
  • "The Wounded" (1954)
  • "Totem and Taboo" (1954)
  • "Father" (1955)
  • "The Night of Light" (1957)
  • "The Alley Man" (1959)
  • "Heel" (1960)
  • "My Sister's Brother" (1960)
  • "A Few Miles" (1960)
  • "Prometheus" (1961)
  • "Tongues of the Moon" (1961)
  • "Uproar in Acheron" (1962)
  • "How Deep the Grooves" (1963)
  • "Some Fabulous Yonder" (1963)
  • "The Blasphemers" (1964)
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  • "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967)
  • "The Felled Star" (1967)
  • "The Shadow of Space" (1967)
  • "Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967)
  • "Don't Wash the Carats" (1968)
  • "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (1968)
  • "Down in the Black Gang" (1969)
  • "The Oogenesis of Bird City" (1970)
  • "The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix" (1971)
  • "Brass and Gold" (1971)
  • "The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971)
  • "Only Who Can Make a Tree?" (1971)
  • "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” (1971)
  • "Seventy Years of Decpop" (1972)
  • "Skinburn" (1972)
  • "The Sumerian Oath" (1972)
  • "Father's in the Basement" (1972)
  • "Toward the Beloved City" (1972)
  • "Mother Earth Wants You" (1972)
  • "Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind" (1973)
  • "Monolog" (1973)
  • "After King Kong Fell" (1973)
  • "Opening the Door" (1973)
  • "The Two-Edged Gift" (1974)
  • "The Startouched" (1974)
  • "The Evolution of Paul Eyre" (1974)
  • "Passing On" (1975)
  • "A Scarletin Study, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1975)
  • "The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others, as Harry Manders" (1975)
  • "Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "The Return of Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "Osiris on Crutches, as Leo Queequeg Tincrowder" (1976)
  • "The Volcano, as Paul Chapin" (1976)
  • "The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1976)
  • "Fundamental Issue" (1976)
  • "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (1977)
  • "Greatheart Silver in the First Command" (1977)
  • "Savage Shadow as Maxwell Grant" (1977)
  • "The Impotency of Bad Karma as Cordwainer Bird" (1977)
  • "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, as Rod Keen" (1978)
  • "Freshman" (1979)
  • "The Leaser of Two Evils" (1979)
  • "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" (1979)
  • "Spiders of the Purple Mage" (1980)
  • "The Making of Revelation, Part I" (1980)
  • "The Long Wet Dream of Rip Van Winkle" (1981)
  • "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (1984)
  • "UFO vs IRS" (1985)
  • "St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye" (1989)
  • "One Down, One to Go" (1990)
  • "Evil, Be My Good" (1990)
  • "Nobody's Perfect" (1991)
  • "Wolf, Iron and Moth" (1991)
  • "Crossing the Dark River" (1992)
  • "A Hole in Hell" (1992)
  • "Up the Bright River" (1993)
  • "Coda" (1993)
  • "The Good of the Land" (2002)
  • "The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs" (2005)
  • "The Unnaturals" (2005)
  • "Who Stole Stonehenge?" (2005)
  • "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006)
  • "The Essence of the Poison" (2006)
  • "The Doll Game" (2006)
  • "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (2006)
  • "The Frames" (2007)
  • "A Spy in the U.S. of Gonococcia" (2007)
  • "A Peoria Night" (2007)
  • "The First Robot" (2008)
  • "Getting Ready to Write" (2008)
  • "My Summer Husband" (2010)
  • "What I Thought I Heard" (2011)
  • "Kwasin and the Bear God" (2011)