Synopsis
A collection of science fiction stories about human societies who have returned to a more natural lifestyle in an effort to reverse pollution, by such authors as Ernest Callenbach, Robert Silverberg, and Ursula K. LeGuin
Reviews
Hugo and Nebula Award winner Robinson has compiled a potent mixture of prose and poetry to depict futures that reject the popular theory of a machine existence, but instead illustrate life in a more primitive state. Some stories take place in a time very close to our own, such as "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson, where bears learn to build fires and come out of hibernation, discovering that they too can use the basic elements needed for survival. Other fascinating stories exist in a more distant setting and include Gary Kilworth's "Hogfoot and Bird-Hands," the disturbing tale of a lonely woman who, by using a common surgical approach, has pets made from her own body parts. A future in the Cro-Magnon period is explored in Robert Silverberg's "House of Bones," the story of a scientist trapped forever in the past he was sent to study. The most startling in its combination of a technological future with the mysteries of the natural world is "Newton's Sleep" by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which a space colony finds that its "perfect world" has been invaded by the ghosts of earth. Broad in its appeal, this fine collection should please not only science fiction aficionados but also those with interest in philosophy, archeology and environmental ethics.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In the latest of his always superb anthologies, Robinson judiciously assembles the best literary tributes to ecological awareness, thereby demonstrating how far science fiction has evolved beyond its preoccupation with sophisticated machinery. The selections are artfully grouped under five headings, such as Statements of Desire and Denial of the Body, that express man's past and future connection to nature, and they range from poems to chapters from previously published novels. The volume begins with eco-poet Gary Snyder's Tomorrow's Song, an anthem for preservation consciousness, and ends with a hymn to nature's nobility by Robinson Jeffers. Such sf veterans as Gene Wolfe, Ursula LeGuin, and Robert Silverberg contribute absorbing meditations on man's environmental heritage as seen from the far future and the distant past. Several tales, including Pat Murphy's beautifully written In the Abode of Snows, about one man's search for the mythical yeti, have the ring and power of classics. Welcome, consciousness-raising visions for our ecologically imperiled times. Carl Hays
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