ADAM AND EVE

   Brian W.ALDISS has given the name Shaggy God stories to stories which provide simple-minded sf frameworks for Biblical myths. A considerable fraction of the unsolicited material submitted to sf magazines is reputed to consist of stories of this kind, the plot most frequently represented being the one in which survivors of a space disaster land on a virgin world and reveal (in the final line) that their names are Adam and Eve. Understandably, these stories rarely see print, although A.E.VAN VOGT's Ship of Darkness (1947) was reprinted in Fantastic in 1961 as a fantasy classic; another example is The Unknown Assassin (1956) by Hank JANSON. Straightforward variants include Another World Begins (1942; vt The Cunning of the Beast) by Nelson BOND (the most prolific writer of pulp Shaggy God stories), in which God is an ALIEN and Adam and Eve are experimental creatures who prove too clever for him; and Evolution's End (1941) by Robert Arthur, in which an old world lurches to its conclusion and Aydem and Ayveh survive to start the whole thing over again. Charles L.HARNESS's The New Reality (1950) goes to some lengths to set up a framework in which a new universe can be created around its hero, his faithful girlfriend, and the arch-villain (Dr Luce), and uses the idea to far better effect. More elaborate sf transfigurations of Biblical mythology include George Babcock's Yezad (1922) and Julian Jay SAVARIN's Lemmus trilogy (1972-7); a more subtle and sophisticated exercise along these lines can be found in Shikasta (1977) by Doris LESSING. Adam and Eve are, of course, frequently featured in allegorical fantasies, notably George MACDONALD's Lilith (1895), Mark TWAIN's Extracts from Adam's Diary (1904) and Eve's Diary (1906), George Bernard SHAW's Back to Methuselah (1921), John Erskine's Adam and Eve (1927), John CROWLEY's The Nightingale Sings at Night (1989) and Piero Scanziani's The White Book (1969; trans Linda Lappin 1991 UK). The names Adam and Eve - particularly the former - are frequently deployed for their metaphorical significance. Adam is a natural name to give to the first ROBOT or ANDROID, and thus we find Eando BINDER writing a biography of Adam Link, Robot (1939-42; fixup 1965), and William C.ANDERSON chronicling the career of Adam M-1 (1964). Adam Link was provided with an Eve Link, but what they did together remains a matter for speculation. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM had earlier described Thomas Alva Edison's creation of the perfect woman in L'Eve future (1886; trans Robert M.Adams as Tomorrow's Eve 1982). The metaphor is found also in some SUPERMAN stories, including two novels entitled The New Adam, one by Noelle ROGER (1924; trans L.P.O.Crowhurst 1926 UK), the other by Stanley G.WEINBAUM (1939), and in prehistoric romances, most notably in Intimations of Eve (1946) and Adam and the Serpent (1947) by Vardis FISHER and in the final volume of George S.VIERECK and Paul ELDRIDGE's Wandering Jew trilogy, The Invincible Adam (1932), where much is made of the matter of the lost rib. Alfred BESTER's last-man-alive story Adam and No Eve (1941) uses the names in an ironic vein. More ambitious sf Creation myths of a vaguely Adamic kind can be found in stories in which human beings are enabled to play a part in cosmological processes of creation or re-creation (COSMOLOGY). One example is van Vogt's The Seesaw (1941; integrated into THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER fixup 1951); others are James BLISH's The Triumph of Time (1958; vt A Clash of Cymbals) and Charles Harness's THE RING OF RITORNEL (1968). Shaggy God stories briefly became popular alternatives to orthodox history in the works of Immanuel VELIKOVSKY and Erich VON DANIKEN, and it is likely that they will continue to exert a magnetic attraction upon the naive imagination.

   See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; EVOLUTION; ORIGIN OF MAN; RELIGION.