Nicholas Fisk and the Characters of 'One is One and All Alone'

Let us get to know who is the author of the short story, " One is One and All Alone".

Nicholas Fisk wrote this short story. Who is he? His real name is David Higginbottom. He is a science fiction writer, writing books for older children. He has written more than 40 booksincluding the popular series of novels called Starstormers.  Born in London in 1923, he has been a musician,actor, photographer,journalist,lecturer, editor and publisher of science fiction and horror stories for some 30 years.

Some of his best known books include Grinny, You Remember Me,Space Hostages and Trillions.

Let us now look at the characters in this short story.

Trish:

She is independent and can take care of herself on the 2-year space voyage.However, she feels lonely as she is the only child aboard the spaceship.

She is an active child, interacting with the Voice Printer which is also her tutor and  converses with it as if it is another human being.

She is smart and can even clone herself with the help of Voice Printer and the Space Lab.

She is single-minded and does thing on her own without the help of an adult. That she did not consult her father or thought through the ethical issues involved in cloning may show some immaturity and irresponsibility.

She is adventurous and sort of ' push the envelope' with the assistance and knowledge from the Voice Printer.

She thinks she is smart until she was outwitted by her clone.

The Father:

A minor character in this short story. He is always busy as he is the executive officer of the spaceship. He is a multi-tasker, talking to Trish as well as perusing computer printouts at the same time.

He is caring and looks in on Trish once in a while.

The Mother:

She is at somewhere in Planet Trion building up a space station. It takes 2 years to reach Trion from Earth.

Clo:

Has the same character traits as Trish as she is her clone. The name, Clo is a short form of Clone.

He outwits Trish the original genetic material that she is cloned from.

Voice Printer:


An informative machine, she provides all the information that Trish requires. In fact it is her reference source and tutor as well.

It is a versatile machine and can perform many functions.

The Voice Printer is a loyal machine and stays by the side of Trish at all times.