Sturgeon interweaves the alien's report with the narrative of The [Widget], the Wadget, and Boff, even including a translator's note on why some words are in brackets—because the translations would be long, complex, and tiresome. Thus the two machines used to manipulate the minds of the test subjects are called Widget and Wadget. The report by the alien protests unethical conduct by [Smith] that may imperil the lives of the test subjects and is used primarily to create suspense. An interesting aspect of the alien's report is the thinness of its analysis until the end of the novel.

Halvorsen, one of the test subjects, is more often used to explain the progress of the experiment than is the alien scientist. This may be done in order to retain a reader's interest—Halvorsen is in the thick of events and his analysis means life...