She published very little fiction after 1960. Daughters of Earth (coll 1968 cut vt A Judith Merril Omnibus: Daughters of Earth and Other Stories 1985) features three fine novellas: the title story (in The Petrified Planet, anth 1953, ed anon) is a family saga set on a colony world "Project Nursemaid" (October 1955 F&SF) – cut from the vt above – concerns the problems of the administrator of a space project which must adopt human embryos Homecalling (November 1956 Science Fiction Stories 2013 dos) is a story of contact with an Alien being. The neatly heart-rending "Dead Center" (November 1954 F&SF) was reprinted in The Best American Short Stories: 1955 edited by Martha Foley. Her best short stories, which usually feature protagonists passively caught up in world-changing events, and often hurt thereby, were ahead of their time. The Tomorrow People ( 1960), an intense psychological mystery story, lacks the emotional resonance of her best early work. Merril published two moderately unambitious but competent novels with C M Kornbluth, the two writing together as by Cyril Judd: Outpost Mars (May-July 1951 Galaxy Science Fiction as "Mars Child" 1952 rev vt Sin in Space 1961) is about the Colonization of Mars Gunner Cade (March-May 1952 Astounding 1952) is set in an era where Future War is a spectator sport (see Games and Sports).
Her first novel, Shadow on the Hearth ( 19), tells the story of a nuclear World War Three in effectively understated fashion from the viewpoint of a suburban New York housewife one of the very best stories of nuclear Holocaust, it was televised as Atomic Attack.
Her first published sf was "That Only a Mother" for Astounding in June 1948. Merril was associated with the Futurians fan group during and after World War Two. She occasionally used the pseudonym Rose Sharon. Born Josephine Juliet Grossman, she preferred the forename Judith, and became Judith Zissman by her first marriage she began to use the surname Merril before later marrying Frederik Pohl (1949-1953), and took Judith Merril as her legal name on becoming a Canadian citizen in 1973.
(1923-1997) US-born anthologist, critic and author, in Canada from 1968.
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