“Silent Brother” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1956. It was by Algis Budrys writing as Paul Janvier. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #4 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read.

Harvey Cable has a fascinating mystery to solve in “Silent Brother.” The spaceship Endeavor has returned from the first interstellar mission. Harvey might have been on that mission but was badly injured in a test flight of an earlier spaceship. He lives alone. Harvey must use a wheelchair or braces on his legs and a cane in both hands to get around the house. After watching the crew of the Endeavor return home on TV, he goes to bed hoping his old astronaut companions will come to see him soon. The next day he wakes up to find that someone has stolen the picture tube from his television.

After carefully searching his house, Harvey finds the picture tube on his basement worktable. He can prove that no one broke into the house. He even tests the picture tube for fingerprints and only finds his own. But Harvey is incapable of carrying a large TV picture tube downstairs because with leg braces, he must firmly hold onto the handrails. If no one broke into his house, who took the picture tube downstairs while he slept?

Harvey goes to bed the next night after rigging his house so he can’t sleepwalk out of his bedroom. Yet, once again he wakes up refreshed and discovers more work has been done on the picture tube in the basement. None of his traps to keep him in his bedroom have been disturbed.

“Silent Partner” is a fun story that sets up a good lock-room mystery. It has a satisfying solution, but I don’t want to tell you about it just yet. I encourage you to go to the link above and read the story. It won’t take long. “Silent Brother” was reprinted in both Merril’s and Asimov & Greenberg’s best of the year anthologies, but it’s not been reprinted in any major anthology since. My friend Mike who is reading these stories along with me emailed me quite a positive review. I’ll post it below after I get into the spoilers. I also liked the story, but does two guys liking a story sixty years later mean it was one of the best of 1956, or a forgotten classic science fiction story?

I’ve been thinking about the levels of good stories. There are good stories, and then there are good stories. A great story is a good story that launches into orbit for the reader. Not everyone who reads a group of stories will love every story, and different readers will pick different stories they think are the good ones. Here’s a hierarchy:

• One of the good stories in a magazine
• One of the good stories in a best-of-the-year anthology
• One of the good stories that are finalists for an award
• One of the good stories in a general anthology
• One of the good stories that are in theme anthology
• One of the good stories that are in a retrospective anthology
• One of the good stories in a list of the all-time best stories.

“Silent Brother” was in the same 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction with the first part of Double Star, one of Heinlein’s best novels, and it won the Hugo award. The issue also contained “Clerical Error” by Mark Clifton which I reviewed last time. Our short story club generally didn’t like “Clerical Error” but Astounding readers back in 1956 picked it as their second favorite after the Heinlein serial in The Analytical Laboratory poll. “Silent Brother” came in third. I like both “Clerical Error” and “Silent Brother,” but I wouldn’t reprint either if I was an anthologist. I thought “Clerical Error” was more ambitious but poorly written, and I thought “Silent Brother” nicely written, and very enjoyable, but far from great. I can easily say it’s a good story, but what does that mean?

If you look at the table of contents for Merril’s best-of-1956 anthology, none of the stories stand out to me except “Stranger Station” by Damon Knight. That story has shown up three times already in our short story reading group because it’s often reprinted. I haven’t read most of Merril’s selection, and “Silent Brother” might be among the good ones. But “Silent Brother” is not in the same league as “Stranger Station.”

Looking at the table of contents from Asimov and Greenberg’s best-of-1956 anthology, we see five stories that stand out: “The Country of the Kind” by Damon Knight, “Exploration Team” by Murray Leinster, “The Man Who Came Early” by Poul Anderson, “The Last Question’ by Isaac Asimov, and “Stranger Station” by Damon Knight. These are all stories our group has encountered several times in the many anthologies we’ve already read. I have read The Great SF Stories 18 (1956), and “Silent Brother” falls toward the back of the pack. (It is interesting that Asimov and Greenberg with thirty-two years of hindsight were able to create such a solid lineup of 1956 SF stories.)

“Silent Brother” wasn’t a finalist for the Hugo award, and it’s never been anthologized for a major theme or retrospective anthology. Nor is it on any fan poll for being an all-time great SF story. Now, do you sense the relative nature of good? What I want to find are the most memorable, most powerful of the SF stories from 1956 that most people consider good. I liked “Silent Brother” a fair amount, but I wouldn’t anthologize it if I was creating an anthology of the best SF short stories of 1956. I might include it in a theme anthology if it worked well with the other stories.

Still, it was a pretty good story. And I think it would be interesting to analyze why? For me, the mystery about who was rebuilding the television made the story a page turner. However, it was the conclusion that elevated the story with a particular kind of happy ending. The crew of the Endeavor brought back invisible aliens who they had developed a highly beneficial symbiotic relationship. The silent brother was a new alien being that lived inside of you. Now, if you had just read Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters you might not think this was so wonderful, but Algis Budrys pulled it off. Why?

I think the idea of having a silent brother that heals and helps you if awful lot like what religion promises, like believing that Jesus will save us, or becoming one with God who will watch over all his followers. “Silent Brother” represents a story of transcendence. It reminds me of the ending to Childhood’s End. Harvey Cable was lonely and suffering from a damaged body. He, and the Endeavor crew welcomed the alien into their bodies and passed them on. But isn’t this the same story as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers? But that story was a metaphor for communism. Budrys presents the alien as a brother. Is it little brother to big brother? Harvey’s personality isn’t changed or possessed; he just has a very helpful invisible friend living inside of him.

Algis Budrys was a savvy guy. I’m guessing he consciously knew about the religion connection in his story, and he knows that most people would love to have a personal god to help them. Instead of inventing a theological being, Budrys creates an alien that serves the same function.

Here’s what Mike had to say:

I think "Silent Brother" is an excellent story.

The genius of the story is what Budrys leaves out. He gives us bits and pieces, and our imagination fills in the blanks.

For example, Harvey Cable has obviously been seriously injured in the past. We don't know for sure what happened to him, but we imagine some kind of space flight misfortune left him damaged. Was it radiation? Was it an equipment failure, or a spaceship catastrophe? Budrys gives us room to speculate.

Budrys relates that Cable's struggle is both physical and mental. He "...trembled on the brink of admitting to himself that his real trouble was the feeling that he'd lost all contact with the world." He is in trouble and "The idea was to hang on to reality."

It's slowly revealed that Cable is disassembling his TV set and reworking it into something else. Budrys writes beautifully descriptive sentences: "How did one shot-up bag of rag-doll bones and twitchless nerves named Harvey Cable accomplish all this in his sleep?" and "What in the name of holy horned hell am I building?"

Once the TV rebuild is complete, Budrys never reveals its exact purpose, but it's obviously of great importance because afterwards "...he felt his silent brother smile within him." Again, we get to fill in the blanks on our own.

A parasitic alien has entered Cable, and healed him. "Who wants symbiosis until he's felt it?"

Budrys explains "...we were born in a solar system with one habitable planet, and we developed the star drive. And on Alpha's planet, a race hung on, waiting for someone to come along and give it hands and bodies

Cable's final act is to send part of his silent brother to each of the three men who have come to interview him. The parasitic alien is passed on.

No long info dumps. No discursions. A concise, heartfelt, beautifully written story.

I think Mike admired the story far more than I did. I thought the rebuilt TV with its flashing lights helped Harvey connect with his new brother and helped him to retrain him to reprogram his damaged body. It’s like when Dr. Cal Meacham builds an “interocitor” in the film “This Island Earth” — the gadget allowed him to connect with aliens.

Mike and I have talked about “Silent Brother,” discussing how stories affect readers differently. Critics often write about fiction as if there were objective standards, but that’s not possible. Fiction is like a day, for some people the day might be wonderful, and for others horrible, and for many just another day.

I’m looking forward to seeing how many members in the Facebook group like or dislike “Silent Brother.”

James Wallace Harris, 12/4/23