Counting Tadpoles [signed tc] - Hardcover

Uncle River

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1906301425 ISBN 13: 9781906301422

Publisher: PS Publishing, 2009

About this title

From Booklist:

For a large portion of his life, Uncle River has lived as a hermit in the American Southwest, a milieu that recurs often in his unusual short fiction. As editor Stanley Schmidt observes in the volume’s introduction, River’s self-imposed isolation has undeniably nourished his fertile imagination to yield dreamlike tales that range widely across the speculative fiction universe. “The Dashing About Flying Box People” regards “flying box” human space explorers from the viewpoint of apparently primitive extraterrestrials whose planet they’ve landed on and exposes the humans’ arrogance and xenophobia. The title story follows an environmentalist doing a backwoods tadpole census into the remote cabin of an elderly, government-bashing recluse, who may or may not be a ghost. Other pieces recount a visit from telepathic aliens to rural New Mexico and the rambling adventures of a self-aware military saber. Although many of the stories are more mainstream than speculative fiction, all share River’s penchant for letting his quirky creativity guide each tale to its often surprising denouement, with mostly engaging results. --Carl Hays

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. If science fiction is the literature of outsiders, no one is better suited to writing it than Uncle River, a hermit who uses the solitude and small towns of the American Southwest as the wellspring for these thoughtful, often optimistic stories of depopulated and low-tech futures. A scientist learning from silence to hear what is happening around and inside him (Counting Tadpoles), day laborers and subsistence farmers finding less horror from a giant lizard than from their local police (The Lizard), and a Hawaiian mariner dream questing to derelict radio telescopes in New Mexico (Geronimo's Buttons) find hope in turning to Nature's rhythms and requirements and away from the material world. River's slow-paced perspective will challenge readers to stop and reflect on just what kinds of worlds are worth building. (Feb.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: PS Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1906301425
• ISBN 13: 9781906301422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 281