Ballroom of the Skies is MacDonald’s second science fiction novel, following on the heels of Wine of the Dreamers. This novel, written in 1951 and published in 1952 early in MacDonald’s career is a companion piece to Dreamers. It does not continue the same story, but explores the same themes such as how to account for the long history of wars and conflict, and the idea that space aliens with telepathic And telekinetic powers walk amongst us, often manipulating us for their own ends.
In the end, this turned out to be a brilliant, thoughtful novel. It was, however, a struggle to get into as a reader with this first part being a bit stiff and disjointed and the story not really exciting for a while. This one is worth sticking with though.
There are sequences in it that are horrific and filled with as much psychological turmoil as anything. Some of the ideas that are played out here were certainly further developed by later authors.
It’s odd that MacDonald gave up on science fiction because he seemed to have so many interesting ideas to explore, but it appears his interests lay elsewhere.
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