Exile from Space - A Positronic Book - Paperback

A young woman raised apart from Earth returns to the planet of her birth and discovers that origin, belonging, and humanity are not as simple as blood or geography.

Judith Merril's Exile from Space begins with a strange homecoming: a girl born on Earth but raised elsewhere is sent back into human society as part of her education. Carefully prepared, imperfectly disguised, and uncertain of what she is meant to learn, she enters an ordinary world that is not ordinary to her at all. Cars, hotels, money, clothing, social customs, fear, desire, and attraction become part of an experiment whose emotional consequences no one has fully anticipated.

First published in Fantastic Universe in November 1956, Exile from Space is a compact and quietly powerful work of classic science fiction. Merril turns the alien-contact premise inward, using estrangement, romance, and cultural observation to ask what makes a person human and what happens when identity is divided between two worlds. The result is not a gadget story, but a character-driven science fiction novelette shaped by exile, curiosity, love, and the painful discovery of belonging.

This Positronic Books edition is well suited to readers of classic science fiction, women's science fiction, mid-century magazine fiction, alien-contact stories, and thoughtful speculative fiction about identity, culture, and emotional awakening. Explore other exciting Positronic Books devoted to classic science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.