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Cascade Point
Contents:
The Giftie Gie Us (1981)
The Dreamsender (1980)
The Energy Crisis of 2215 (1981)
Return to the Fold (1984)
The Shadows of Evening (1983)
Not Always to the Strong (1987)
The Challenge (1987)
The Cassandra (1983)
Dragon Pax (1987)
Job Inaction (1981)
Teamwork (1984)
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment (1983)
Cascade Point (1983)
The Giftie Gie Us (1981)
The Dreamsender (1980)
The Energy Crisis of 2215 (1981)
Return to the Fold (1984)
The Shadows of Evening (1983)
Not Always to the Strong (1987)
The Challenge (1987)
The Cassandra (1983)
Dragon Pax (1987)
Job Inaction (1981)
Teamwork (1984)
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment (1983)
Cascade Point (1983)
416 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1986
1 person is currently reading
356 people want to read
About the author
Timothy Zahn
482 books8,540 followersTimothy Zahn attended Michigan State University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1973. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and achieved an M.S. degree in physics in 1975. While he was pursuing a doctorate in physics, his adviser became ill and died. Zahn never completed the doctorate. In 1975 he had begun writing science fiction as a hobby, and he became a professional writer. He and his wife Anna live in Bandon, Oregon. They have a son, Corwin Zahn.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 2, 2011
I confess; I've read every Zahn book I could get my hands on. From the epic Thrawn Trilogy, which I've read countless times, to the hard-SF-mystery Night Train to Rigel, I've never ceased to be amazed by the raw talent this man has. His plots are intricate, mysterious, and best of all, believable. For a SF writer, that's quite an achievement. However, having now read Cascade Point and Other Stories twice, I can safely say that I've found my favorite Zahn book.
I have never been a huge fan of short stories; many writers just can't pull them off. Most big-name authors hardly try anymore. With a full-length novel, your plot has room to grow and stretch. Your characters are not static, they develop. With a short story, character development is basically out of the question-making it harder for author and reader to communicate. However, this collection of short stories changed my mind somewhat. Zahn's stark narrative and wealth of good ideas make this collection a joy to read.
The book starts off with the rough, apocalyptic, Burns-quoting "The Giftie Gie Us." The strange title, far from being an empty sci-fi phrase--"Zorba's Patch"--is a line from Burns' famous "To A Louse"--"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as others see us." The story takes place in post-WWIII Canada, where the horribly disfigured protagonist ekes out a living in the wilderness. He meets a blind woman, and she comes into his home and becomes his wife. The story unfolds slowly, and we can feel the quiet conflicting emotions of the main character. The story seems at first to not be supernatural at all, but the startling revelation at the end made me think more than any other story in this collection.
After that comes the head-scratching "Dreamsender." A very readable, if less than perfect, "first contact" story which shows Zahn's usual idea prowess.
"The Energy Crisis of 2215" was taut and suspenseful--elusive qualities in a short story--and bristled with real scientific terms. Only Zahn, with his MS in Physics, could have pulled this story off, and he does.
"Return to the Fold" is an imaginative, mental story, and the first in the book to really delve into the psyche. Not the last, however. The middle section was slightly incomprehensible, but the story overall was great and provided much food for thought.
"The Shadows of Evening" and "Not Always to the Strong" were classified as science fiction when they were written, would now fall solidly into the "fantasy" category. Both take place on the same world, which is stuck in the dark ages because a "shadow" grows around everything manmade. "Shadow warriors" are dedicated to eradicating them, but a new method arises and they are left obsolete. It's another interesting premise, but not quite up my alley. The protagonist is a little hard to get used to, with none of the mental subtlety I've come to expect.
"The Challenge" is quite obsolete now, but it's interesting how Zahn, writing a quarter century ago, foresaw the rise of internet games.
"The Cassandra" is another psychic story, about a race of people who experience debilitating visions of tragedy, and of one "cassandra" who saves his boss' life from a train wreck and then contemplates his place in the universe.
In "Dragon Pax," Zahn delves into the socio-political with great success. A young zealot swears to assassinate the "Dragonmaster" who rules his world, only to be caught and find that his captor is not who he seems. Instead, he is an old, fragile, dying man--not the expected tyrant. Zahn's "dragons" are the most innovative fantasy concept I've read in years, and sometimes it's hard to remember that Zahn is a SF author.
"Job Inaction" is a horror story of mundanity--a man finds his job of thirty-five years terminated because of a glitch, and the new job lottery system won't let him get it back. In a series of semi-hilarious plots, he blackmails the government bureaucrat in charge of the system into giving him his job back. Another great idea.
"Teamwork" is a strange duck. An entirely psychic story, it takes place entirely in the head of a schizophrenic person who has a job to do. This imaginative story is probably the most unique of the bunch.
"The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment" is probably my favorite. Using sci-fi to address social issues is hardly new, but this story does it more adeptly than anything I've ever read. Using a telepath to see if fetuses are truly human? What an idea! This story, more than any of the others, got to the heart of its subject matter. An excellent, provocative, socially adept story about the perils of science and the mysterious tragedy of abortion.
"Cascade Point," the title story, is another gem. You can tell because it won the Hugo Award (1984, Best Novella.) This story, like "Energy Crisis," has a lot of scientific terms, and you can tell Zahn knows how to use them. Alone in this volume, Cascade Point does the impossible--develops its characters. This story reads like a full-length novel, and deserves to be one. Perhaps some day.
All in all, this book is definitely in my "all-time faves" folder. A diverse collection of the best from Zahn. Zahn's Hemingway-aping prose is fun, readable, and in its own way, lyrical. An excellent read.
I have never been a huge fan of short stories; many writers just can't pull them off. Most big-name authors hardly try anymore. With a full-length novel, your plot has room to grow and stretch. Your characters are not static, they develop. With a short story, character development is basically out of the question-making it harder for author and reader to communicate. However, this collection of short stories changed my mind somewhat. Zahn's stark narrative and wealth of good ideas make this collection a joy to read.
The book starts off with the rough, apocalyptic, Burns-quoting "The Giftie Gie Us." The strange title, far from being an empty sci-fi phrase--"Zorba's Patch"--is a line from Burns' famous "To A Louse"--"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as others see us." The story takes place in post-WWIII Canada, where the horribly disfigured protagonist ekes out a living in the wilderness. He meets a blind woman, and she comes into his home and becomes his wife. The story unfolds slowly, and we can feel the quiet conflicting emotions of the main character. The story seems at first to not be supernatural at all, but the startling revelation at the end made me think more than any other story in this collection.
After that comes the head-scratching "Dreamsender." A very readable, if less than perfect, "first contact" story which shows Zahn's usual idea prowess.
"The Energy Crisis of 2215" was taut and suspenseful--elusive qualities in a short story--and bristled with real scientific terms. Only Zahn, with his MS in Physics, could have pulled this story off, and he does.
"Return to the Fold" is an imaginative, mental story, and the first in the book to really delve into the psyche. Not the last, however. The middle section was slightly incomprehensible, but the story overall was great and provided much food for thought.
"The Shadows of Evening" and "Not Always to the Strong" were classified as science fiction when they were written, would now fall solidly into the "fantasy" category. Both take place on the same world, which is stuck in the dark ages because a "shadow" grows around everything manmade. "Shadow warriors" are dedicated to eradicating them, but a new method arises and they are left obsolete. It's another interesting premise, but not quite up my alley. The protagonist is a little hard to get used to, with none of the mental subtlety I've come to expect.
"The Challenge" is quite obsolete now, but it's interesting how Zahn, writing a quarter century ago, foresaw the rise of internet games.
"The Cassandra" is another psychic story, about a race of people who experience debilitating visions of tragedy, and of one "cassandra" who saves his boss' life from a train wreck and then contemplates his place in the universe.
In "Dragon Pax," Zahn delves into the socio-political with great success. A young zealot swears to assassinate the "Dragonmaster" who rules his world, only to be caught and find that his captor is not who he seems. Instead, he is an old, fragile, dying man--not the expected tyrant. Zahn's "dragons" are the most innovative fantasy concept I've read in years, and sometimes it's hard to remember that Zahn is a SF author.
"Job Inaction" is a horror story of mundanity--a man finds his job of thirty-five years terminated because of a glitch, and the new job lottery system won't let him get it back. In a series of semi-hilarious plots, he blackmails the government bureaucrat in charge of the system into giving him his job back. Another great idea.
"Teamwork" is a strange duck. An entirely psychic story, it takes place entirely in the head of a schizophrenic person who has a job to do. This imaginative story is probably the most unique of the bunch.
"The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment" is probably my favorite. Using sci-fi to address social issues is hardly new, but this story does it more adeptly than anything I've ever read. Using a telepath to see if fetuses are truly human? What an idea! This story, more than any of the others, got to the heart of its subject matter. An excellent, provocative, socially adept story about the perils of science and the mysterious tragedy of abortion.
"Cascade Point," the title story, is another gem. You can tell because it won the Hugo Award (1984, Best Novella.) This story, like "Energy Crisis," has a lot of scientific terms, and you can tell Zahn knows how to use them. Alone in this volume, Cascade Point does the impossible--develops its characters. This story reads like a full-length novel, and deserves to be one. Perhaps some day.
All in all, this book is definitely in my "all-time faves" folder. A diverse collection of the best from Zahn. Zahn's Hemingway-aping prose is fun, readable, and in its own way, lyrical. An excellent read.
December 7, 2018
Since I am working my way through Timothy Zahn’s back catalogue, when I saw this short story collection containing “Cascade Point”, the novella for which Zahn won the Hugo, I knew I needed to check it out.
Like my previous review of J. G. Ballard’s short fiction, each short story has its own mini-review, along with a mini-score out of five stars. I’ll conclude with my overall impressions of the collection.
This book can be bought used, or you can find another, more recent ebook that contains several of the same stories.
The Giftie Gie Us ****
A post-apocalyptic tale from the end of the Cold War, with the title inspired by Robert Burns’ poem "To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church". This was a serious throwback for me, with the final conflagration being a nuclear war over oil. The other thing that surprised with with vivid memories was a reference to the strength and permanence of the Berlin Wall. When I was a kid, those tropes were commonplace, but now they are dated enough to shock me.
Each story in this collection has a short afterword written by Zahn, and here he mentions that this was his first run in with the First Law of Science Fiction: there are no truly “new” ideas. Zahn’s trick in this story is nearly the same as “Anasazi”, a short story by Dean Ing published at nearly the same time. It also ends up being the same as Tim Powers’ much later Three Days to Never.
Which I don’t think matters much, and neither does Zahn, since he says this was also his introduction to the Second Law of Science Fiction: it is what you do with an idea that matters. I think Zahn wrote a believable story here about finding love, and common humanity, in the midst of disability and ruin. I’ve said before that I enjoy Zahn’s moral realism. This is an early example of just that.
The Dreamsender **
This one was even more of a throwback than “The Giftie Gie Us”. With its setting, the Moon, and antagonists, mostly deadly serious military men, “The Dreamsender” felt like a 1950s juvenile. This was only Zahn’s second story he sold, so he can be forgiven for trying out different styles to see what fit.
One of the weakest stories in the collection, but still fun.
The Energy Crisis of 2215 ***
This is the closest thing to hard sci fi I have come across in Zahn’s work. His afterword says this story came out of a series of lectures at the University of Illinois in 1979. In the novels I am familiar with, Zahn typically wears his education in physics lightly. Here, it comes to the forefront, providing a wealth of technical details about a power plant that uses a captured black hole as a power source.
I also liked the way in which Zahn subverted the trope of the anti-science politician here. Jerry Pournelle used to complain frequently about Senator Bill Proxmire, who campaigned against the kind of pie-in-the-sky projects that Jerry liked. I think Jerry even used to write unflattering caricatures of Senator Proxmire in his books. Zahn takes a more Machiavellian approach here, which is a minor theme of many works in this collection.
Return to the Fold ****
With the recent revelation that a researcher in China used the CRISPR technique to genetically engineer human children, this story could have been written yesterday. This is a fantastic exploration of what it would feel like to be a human engineered for a purpose by other men.
…what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. – C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Tied up in this naked exercise of power are genuine moral dilemmas about the sacrifices necessary for as grand a project as interstellar trade. I appreciate his approach to character motivation here, which feels like “let’s see what person would do in this situation”. Characters panic, make mistakes, connive, save face, and repent. Not bad for 37 pages.
The Shadows of Evening ***
This one blurs the line between sci fi and fantasy. The setup is clearly sci fi, with a crashed colony ship, but the mysterious shadow that grows upon any bit of refined metal or mechanism more complicated than a lever feels like magic. The people of Vesper managed to survive this massive handicap, and even learned to fight back, developing a mental technique that could disperse the shadow temporarily. A guild of Shadow Warriors is formed to allow a modest level of technological development by mastering the difficult technique.
Things go on this way for generations, until a new, easier technique is developed. The Shadow Warrior guild is not impressed, used to challenges from frauds and charlatans. Except this time, the Disciples of Light are actually on to something.
Change is hard, especially when it destroys your livelihood. The real action here is psychological, in the reactions of Turek, the grizzled veteran of many years struggle against the shadows, when someone comes up and takes it all away from him.
Not Always to the Strong ***
A previously unpublished followup to “The Shadows of Evening”. The Disciples of Light have unleashed a technological revolution on Vesper, but technological revolutions easily turn into political ones when technology is used to make new and better weapons.
Zahn spends some time looking at the unintended consequences of sudden flood of technology, and also at the character of the now marginalized men who sacrificed to give their fellow men a better life than they otherwise would have had.
In the afterword, Zahn expresses some regret he never got a chance to expand on this storyline. I would have liked that too, as a reflection of technological development and human choices, this could have been an interesting twist on the usual kind of rising from the ashes story you get in post-apocalyptic fiction.
The Challenge *****
This is videogame fiction a loooong time before there was videogame fiction. Zahn says as much in the afterword. The story itself was fun, but even more fun is seeing what Zahn guessed right and what he didn’t.
Good guesses:
Online videogames supporting the more mundane activities of the Internet through advertising
Multiple screens with heads up displays
Competitive level building
Not so good:
The interface is all text! You have to type out your actions like Zork. This would be really interesting to see if it existed now. I expect you could get really fast with practice, but this is so different from either joystick or mouse and keyboard control.
The numbers of people involved are so small. The most popular game in the world only has a few thousand fans. I can’t see how the ad budget works out. Nick Cole’s Soda Pop Soldier and Pop Kult Warlord reflect how big games could get as entertainment.
I enjoyed this one a lot. A prescient guess about the future, with a little bit about the consequences of electronic entertainment thrown in.
The Cassandra ****
A sci fi tale of social ostracism, disability, and sacrifice. In the afterword, Zahn notes this is one of the few tragic stories he has written. I had also noticed Zahn’s preference for the upbeat, but I think this one comes off well.
One of the best parts of this story is the working class supporting character who ends up training the outcast Alban to work in a commercial kitchen when he can’t find any other work. That guy feels just like people I have met in real life, which is my usual standard for good characterization.
Dragon Pax *****
I think this is plausibly a precursor to the Heir to Empire books. Zahn takes a hard, Machiavellian look at war, politics, and survival. And it’s got dragons. It asks much the same question as Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, what would you give up to ensure that ordinary people can enjoy the fruits of order and prosperity? This story makes what would be a Straussian reading of the events in question, if you weren’t in on the secret.
I almost said there aren’t any real benevolent dictators, but then I remembered Lee Kuan Yew, who at least demonstrates that the concept isn’t purely a fantasy of Plato. At the very least, it doesn’t work out well often. But often enough, you can find examples of some hard bastard who did some good. Which explains the popularity of the argument, “yeah, but he’s our bastard”.
Job Inaction ***
Sci fi writers sometimes come up with interesting ideas about technocratic solutions to social problems, and this is a competitor to universal basic income, with a 1980s flavor. Zahn tried hard to come up with something that would work, even though he wouldn’t like it.
Teamwork **
Another throwback story, this one reminded me quite a bit of Ballard’s collection, except it has a happy ending. A psychological story with a thin veneer of 1950s era B-movies. I didn’t really find much of interest here, but this clearly isn’t where Zahn invested his storytelling long-term.
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment *****
A moral thought experiment along the lines of his later Soulminder, itself a collection of short stories expanded to novel length. This explores the debate over whether fetuses are human, using the world’s only verified telepath as the investigator. I found Zahn’s story subtle and provocative, which is not where you really expect these things to end up.
Cascade Point *****
I can see why they put “Cascade Point” at the end. I probably would have been tempted to stop reading after I got here, because this was really good. Zahn deserved the Hugo for this. I also think his success here established [or reinforced?] his style, because “Cascade Point” feels like the Timothy Zahn I know and love. Most authors have a style, and this collection was fun to read precisely because I got to see Zahn trying on different styles early in his career. This one is clearly the best fit.
The story and characters are both familiar, and yet unexpected. Zahn’s characters are fully fleshed out, which is remarkable in so short a work. This could have been a novel, but being longer wouldn’t actually make it better [which is how I feel about Ender’s Game too, but Card went ahead and made it a novel anyways].
Zahn’s idea for faster-than-light travel here is more interesting than just about any that I have ever come across. Probably this is because we both have an education in physics, but I find his topological method of transforming a rotation into linear motion to be absolutely fascinating.
To then find a way to work in not only the convenient psychiatric patient subplot, but also the more interesting character development the ship’s crew undergoes as they claw their way back from the abyss is why Zahn has now been writing books for a living for almost forty years.
Ben’s final verdict *****
I am glad I picked this volume up. I got to see a different side of Timothy Zahn, as he explored different ways of telling stories. I also got to see the story that first made him famous, and justly so in my opinion. As a fan, I love this book, and I think any other fan of Zahn probably will too.
The blurb in the back of one of the most recent Zahn books I read said he is the author of nearly 100 short stories and novellas. I have my work cut out for me.
Like my previous review of J. G. Ballard’s short fiction, each short story has its own mini-review, along with a mini-score out of five stars. I’ll conclude with my overall impressions of the collection.
This book can be bought used, or you can find another, more recent ebook that contains several of the same stories.
The Giftie Gie Us ****
A post-apocalyptic tale from the end of the Cold War, with the title inspired by Robert Burns’ poem "To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church". This was a serious throwback for me, with the final conflagration being a nuclear war over oil. The other thing that surprised with with vivid memories was a reference to the strength and permanence of the Berlin Wall. When I was a kid, those tropes were commonplace, but now they are dated enough to shock me.
Each story in this collection has a short afterword written by Zahn, and here he mentions that this was his first run in with the First Law of Science Fiction: there are no truly “new” ideas. Zahn’s trick in this story is nearly the same as “Anasazi”, a short story by Dean Ing published at nearly the same time. It also ends up being the same as Tim Powers’ much later Three Days to Never.
Which I don’t think matters much, and neither does Zahn, since he says this was also his introduction to the Second Law of Science Fiction: it is what you do with an idea that matters. I think Zahn wrote a believable story here about finding love, and common humanity, in the midst of disability and ruin. I’ve said before that I enjoy Zahn’s moral realism. This is an early example of just that.
The Dreamsender **
This one was even more of a throwback than “The Giftie Gie Us”. With its setting, the Moon, and antagonists, mostly deadly serious military men, “The Dreamsender” felt like a 1950s juvenile. This was only Zahn’s second story he sold, so he can be forgiven for trying out different styles to see what fit.
One of the weakest stories in the collection, but still fun.
The Energy Crisis of 2215 ***
This is the closest thing to hard sci fi I have come across in Zahn’s work. His afterword says this story came out of a series of lectures at the University of Illinois in 1979. In the novels I am familiar with, Zahn typically wears his education in physics lightly. Here, it comes to the forefront, providing a wealth of technical details about a power plant that uses a captured black hole as a power source.
I also liked the way in which Zahn subverted the trope of the anti-science politician here. Jerry Pournelle used to complain frequently about Senator Bill Proxmire, who campaigned against the kind of pie-in-the-sky projects that Jerry liked. I think Jerry even used to write unflattering caricatures of Senator Proxmire in his books. Zahn takes a more Machiavellian approach here, which is a minor theme of many works in this collection.
Return to the Fold ****
With the recent revelation that a researcher in China used the CRISPR technique to genetically engineer human children, this story could have been written yesterday. This is a fantastic exploration of what it would feel like to be a human engineered for a purpose by other men.
…what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. – C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Tied up in this naked exercise of power are genuine moral dilemmas about the sacrifices necessary for as grand a project as interstellar trade. I appreciate his approach to character motivation here, which feels like “let’s see what person would do in this situation”. Characters panic, make mistakes, connive, save face, and repent. Not bad for 37 pages.
The Shadows of Evening ***
This one blurs the line between sci fi and fantasy. The setup is clearly sci fi, with a crashed colony ship, but the mysterious shadow that grows upon any bit of refined metal or mechanism more complicated than a lever feels like magic. The people of Vesper managed to survive this massive handicap, and even learned to fight back, developing a mental technique that could disperse the shadow temporarily. A guild of Shadow Warriors is formed to allow a modest level of technological development by mastering the difficult technique.
Things go on this way for generations, until a new, easier technique is developed. The Shadow Warrior guild is not impressed, used to challenges from frauds and charlatans. Except this time, the Disciples of Light are actually on to something.
Change is hard, especially when it destroys your livelihood. The real action here is psychological, in the reactions of Turek, the grizzled veteran of many years struggle against the shadows, when someone comes up and takes it all away from him.
Not Always to the Strong ***
A previously unpublished followup to “The Shadows of Evening”. The Disciples of Light have unleashed a technological revolution on Vesper, but technological revolutions easily turn into political ones when technology is used to make new and better weapons.
Zahn spends some time looking at the unintended consequences of sudden flood of technology, and also at the character of the now marginalized men who sacrificed to give their fellow men a better life than they otherwise would have had.
In the afterword, Zahn expresses some regret he never got a chance to expand on this storyline. I would have liked that too, as a reflection of technological development and human choices, this could have been an interesting twist on the usual kind of rising from the ashes story you get in post-apocalyptic fiction.
The Challenge *****
This is videogame fiction a loooong time before there was videogame fiction. Zahn says as much in the afterword. The story itself was fun, but even more fun is seeing what Zahn guessed right and what he didn’t.
Good guesses:
Online videogames supporting the more mundane activities of the Internet through advertising
Multiple screens with heads up displays
Competitive level building
Not so good:
The interface is all text! You have to type out your actions like Zork. This would be really interesting to see if it existed now. I expect you could get really fast with practice, but this is so different from either joystick or mouse and keyboard control.
The numbers of people involved are so small. The most popular game in the world only has a few thousand fans. I can’t see how the ad budget works out. Nick Cole’s Soda Pop Soldier and Pop Kult Warlord reflect how big games could get as entertainment.
I enjoyed this one a lot. A prescient guess about the future, with a little bit about the consequences of electronic entertainment thrown in.
The Cassandra ****
A sci fi tale of social ostracism, disability, and sacrifice. In the afterword, Zahn notes this is one of the few tragic stories he has written. I had also noticed Zahn’s preference for the upbeat, but I think this one comes off well.
One of the best parts of this story is the working class supporting character who ends up training the outcast Alban to work in a commercial kitchen when he can’t find any other work. That guy feels just like people I have met in real life, which is my usual standard for good characterization.
Dragon Pax *****
I think this is plausibly a precursor to the Heir to Empire books. Zahn takes a hard, Machiavellian look at war, politics, and survival. And it’s got dragons. It asks much the same question as Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, what would you give up to ensure that ordinary people can enjoy the fruits of order and prosperity? This story makes what would be a Straussian reading of the events in question, if you weren’t in on the secret.
I almost said there aren’t any real benevolent dictators, but then I remembered Lee Kuan Yew, who at least demonstrates that the concept isn’t purely a fantasy of Plato. At the very least, it doesn’t work out well often. But often enough, you can find examples of some hard bastard who did some good. Which explains the popularity of the argument, “yeah, but he’s our bastard”.
Job Inaction ***
Sci fi writers sometimes come up with interesting ideas about technocratic solutions to social problems, and this is a competitor to universal basic income, with a 1980s flavor. Zahn tried hard to come up with something that would work, even though he wouldn’t like it.
Teamwork **
Another throwback story, this one reminded me quite a bit of Ballard’s collection, except it has a happy ending. A psychological story with a thin veneer of 1950s era B-movies. I didn’t really find much of interest here, but this clearly isn’t where Zahn invested his storytelling long-term.
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment *****
A moral thought experiment along the lines of his later Soulminder, itself a collection of short stories expanded to novel length. This explores the debate over whether fetuses are human, using the world’s only verified telepath as the investigator. I found Zahn’s story subtle and provocative, which is not where you really expect these things to end up.
Cascade Point *****
I can see why they put “Cascade Point” at the end. I probably would have been tempted to stop reading after I got here, because this was really good. Zahn deserved the Hugo for this. I also think his success here established [or reinforced?] his style, because “Cascade Point” feels like the Timothy Zahn I know and love. Most authors have a style, and this collection was fun to read precisely because I got to see Zahn trying on different styles early in his career. This one is clearly the best fit.
The story and characters are both familiar, and yet unexpected. Zahn’s characters are fully fleshed out, which is remarkable in so short a work. This could have been a novel, but being longer wouldn’t actually make it better [which is how I feel about Ender’s Game too, but Card went ahead and made it a novel anyways].
Zahn’s idea for faster-than-light travel here is more interesting than just about any that I have ever come across. Probably this is because we both have an education in physics, but I find his topological method of transforming a rotation into linear motion to be absolutely fascinating.
To then find a way to work in not only the convenient psychiatric patient subplot, but also the more interesting character development the ship’s crew undergoes as they claw their way back from the abyss is why Zahn has now been writing books for a living for almost forty years.
Ben’s final verdict *****
I am glad I picked this volume up. I got to see a different side of Timothy Zahn, as he explored different ways of telling stories. I also got to see the story that first made him famous, and justly so in my opinion. As a fan, I love this book, and I think any other fan of Zahn probably will too.
The blurb in the back of one of the most recent Zahn books I read said he is the author of nearly 100 short stories and novellas. I have my work cut out for me.
May 11, 2019
Оказва се, че Тимъти Зан го бива и в кратката форма. Поне половината от разказите в този сборник са много добри, а останалите - предимно добри, имаше само един-два, които не ми допаднаха особено. Няма да ги разглеждам един по един, само ще кажа: струва си да се прочете!
June 12, 2013
Like many people, I was introduced to Timothy Zahn through the Thrawn Trilogy of Star Wars novels that essentially laid the groundwork for the Expanded Universe. I was aware that he wrote other science fiction, but had never really read any of his other stuff.
A friend handed me Cascade Point, a collection of short stories that launched Zahn's career.
Each story is entertaining and self contained (with one caveat, there is one story that is a direct sequel of the previous story.) Each has its seed in an interesting idea or concept that Zahn wants to explore, but is given depth by exploration of the human condition and our role in society.
On the outside, there are stories of extra sensory perception, black holes, alternate realities, space exploration and other tropes one might expect in a science fiction collection. Look a layer deeper and they are stories about isolation, connecting with others, adjusting to having your job become obsolete, searching for the truth in life's questions and coming to grips with where you are in life.
Zahn tackles social issues including abortion and genetic experimentation and even predicts the rise of online gaming communities, communal content creation and competition decades before they became daily realities.
If you are looking to explore worlds or the inner self, you are in the right place, and what an entertaining place it is too.
A friend handed me Cascade Point, a collection of short stories that launched Zahn's career.
Each story is entertaining and self contained (with one caveat, there is one story that is a direct sequel of the previous story.) Each has its seed in an interesting idea or concept that Zahn wants to explore, but is given depth by exploration of the human condition and our role in society.
On the outside, there are stories of extra sensory perception, black holes, alternate realities, space exploration and other tropes one might expect in a science fiction collection. Look a layer deeper and they are stories about isolation, connecting with others, adjusting to having your job become obsolete, searching for the truth in life's questions and coming to grips with where you are in life.
Zahn tackles social issues including abortion and genetic experimentation and even predicts the rise of online gaming communities, communal content creation and competition decades before they became daily realities.
If you are looking to explore worlds or the inner self, you are in the right place, and what an entertaining place it is too.
January 9, 2026
[This review is for the Ace Double also including Greg Bear's Hardfought and does not include other stories by Zahn]
A star captain experiences a mishap during a complex intergalactic maneuver and has to devise a means to get back.
I didn't think the main gimmicks were well-written into the story--one relied on a new metal that somehow directed the ship and was quite expensive and particular, but everyone acted ignorant and unaware of it. Some of this is believable--if neodymium magnets interfered with airplane electronics, I doubt everyone would recognize they're in everything from phone cases to candy boxes... but we do have well-advertised rules about where not to store lithium batteries.
The maneuver in space required manual control because electric devices wouldn't work... and yet the psychiatrist stayed unsedated through the trip and plugged in his new expensive device (to a working outlet). I'd have expected certain luggage to be inspected and rules to be explained. It also seems like the simple cause of the problem might have been expected and solutions for it thought about beforehand--was this really the first time it had been experienced? Had they not tested misalignment/activation of the new metal? Had they done no analysis of why previous ships might never have returned?
Another story element was that during the maneuver, awake passengers would encounter multiple copies of themselves as reflections from parallel universes and then wake up/come down feeling vertiginous and depressed. Sounded a lot like a bad trip--some type of psychedelic disassociation. This was surprisingly poorly investigated despite the middle-aged appearing captain's whole career being based off of repetition of this procedure.
I had been interested in reading this author again--I loved the Thrawn books in grade school--but this didn't rekindle any interest or connection. Procedurally this read as Star Trek fan fiction (not necessarily meant as a slight, just a note of the simple episodic format with captain, crew, problem, & diligent engineer with a just-in-time solution).
A star captain experiences a mishap during a complex intergalactic maneuver and has to devise a means to get back.
I didn't think the main gimmicks were well-written into the story--one relied on a new metal that somehow directed the ship and was quite expensive and particular, but everyone acted ignorant and unaware of it. Some of this is believable--if neodymium magnets interfered with airplane electronics, I doubt everyone would recognize they're in everything from phone cases to candy boxes... but we do have well-advertised rules about where not to store lithium batteries.
The maneuver in space required manual control because electric devices wouldn't work... and yet the psychiatrist stayed unsedated through the trip and plugged in his new expensive device (to a working outlet). I'd have expected certain luggage to be inspected and rules to be explained. It also seems like the simple cause of the problem might have been expected and solutions for it thought about beforehand--was this really the first time it had been experienced? Had they not tested misalignment/activation of the new metal? Had they done no analysis of why previous ships might never have returned?
Another story element was that during the maneuver, awake passengers would encounter multiple copies of themselves as reflections from parallel universes and then wake up/come down feeling vertiginous and depressed. Sounded a lot like a bad trip--some type of psychedelic disassociation. This was surprisingly poorly investigated despite the middle-aged appearing captain's whole career being based off of repetition of this procedure.
I had been interested in reading this author again--I loved the Thrawn books in grade school--but this didn't rekindle any interest or connection. Procedurally this read as Star Trek fan fiction (not necessarily meant as a slight, just a note of the simple episodic format with captain, crew, problem, & diligent engineer with a just-in-time solution).
December 27, 2025
Generally speaking, I don't like anthologies of short stories (like this), and really this isn't much different in that respect. There were several stories that were pretty good worth mentioning:
Job Inaction - Set in a time where the government requires that all jobs be presented as a lottery for anyone to sign up for. An interesting look at where "total fairness" could take us and all the stupid things that companies have to do to jump through the hoops (and loopholes) in trying to hire. Definitely worth the read.
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment - What happens when a telepath attempts to determine start of life in embryo? An interesting story pointing out all the repercussions (real and perceived) for "definitely" proving "where life starts". What does it answer and what doesn't it answer?
Cascade Point - a novella, but a good one that has some real mind-bending science. Very creative and very interesting.
Would I pick it up again, if I had known it was an anthology... probably not, but I would have missed some decent stories.
Job Inaction - Set in a time where the government requires that all jobs be presented as a lottery for anyone to sign up for. An interesting look at where "total fairness" could take us and all the stupid things that companies have to do to jump through the hoops (and loopholes) in trying to hire. Definitely worth the read.
The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment - What happens when a telepath attempts to determine start of life in embryo? An interesting story pointing out all the repercussions (real and perceived) for "definitely" proving "where life starts". What does it answer and what doesn't it answer?
Cascade Point - a novella, but a good one that has some real mind-bending science. Very creative and very interesting.
Would I pick it up again, if I had known it was an anthology... probably not, but I would have missed some decent stories.
October 13, 2024
Some authors are excellent novelists and struggle with the short story format. Zahn is not one of those authors. His short stories may be even more brilliant than his novels.
I finished this book maybe 20 years ago when I was in high school and most of the stories have stuck with me deeply. I thought about Cascade Point a lot while earning my physics degree - you can definitely tell Zahn is a physicist himself! Definitely science fiction, but it’s something conceivably bizzare. As always though, Zahn’s genius comes in delving into the humanity of his characters in these situations.
The other standout story for me is the one about the gamer in a tournament (I don’t remember the title - it’s been too long). I’m a gamer myself, and I read it just as online gaming was really taking off. I don’t want to put spoilers here, but the ending really stuck with me since I was at a similar point in life as the protagonist.
I finished this book maybe 20 years ago when I was in high school and most of the stories have stuck with me deeply. I thought about Cascade Point a lot while earning my physics degree - you can definitely tell Zahn is a physicist himself! Definitely science fiction, but it’s something conceivably bizzare. As always though, Zahn’s genius comes in delving into the humanity of his characters in these situations.
The other standout story for me is the one about the gamer in a tournament (I don’t remember the title - it’s been too long). I’m a gamer myself, and I read it just as online gaming was really taking off. I don’t want to put spoilers here, but the ending really stuck with me since I was at a similar point in life as the protagonist.
August 1, 2025
This collection of some of Zahn's shorter works highlights his imagination and writing talents. "Cascade Point," a major award winner, is the strongest piece, but the others are also quite good. Each tale comes with an afterward that expands on Zahn's reasons for writing it and how it fits into his career.
March 14, 2025
This took me a long time to get through. I’m a huge fan of Zahn’s Star Wars work, but I found this collection to be fairly bland and could hardly remember the contents of each story, even just after I had read each one.
December 3, 2022
These stories range from good to brilliant. Not one I would recommend skipping over. This makes me want to read more short fiction collections.
November 10, 2014
A nice collection of early Zahn shorts. Interestingly, the titular story, which won the Hugo award, was not all that great in my opinion. As one would expect from an early collection, this volume is a mixed bag, with the balance of the stories being pretty good. I enjoyed seeing some of the early ideas in these stories that seemed to take on more life after being modified in the "Conquerors" series. All in all, I wish I had run into Zahn sooner, as outside of the Thrawn Star Wars universe novels, I have only been reading his other work recently, and his other works that I have read are far, far, better than his Star Wars novels (which were the best of all the SW universe novels, by the way).
December 1, 2007
Not awesome (though I guess it won a Hugo). I only bought it because it's the flip side of a Tor Double with a Greg Bear book.
Update: Part of the reason I was so hard on Cascade Point, I've realized, was that it's in my least favorite segment of speculative fiction -- the future as a simple mapping of the past* -- the starship version of a tramp steamer is even called a "tramp starmer", which really rings hollow to my ears. And it had a side helping of "the technical problem with your imaginary technology" ala the technobabble problem of the week on Star Trek: TNG. Boo, I say.
Update: Part of the reason I was so hard on Cascade Point, I've realized, was that it's in my least favorite segment of speculative fiction -- the future as a simple mapping of the past* -- the starship version of a tramp steamer is even called a "tramp starmer", which really rings hollow to my ears. And it had a side helping of "the technical problem with your imaginary technology" ala the technobabble problem of the week on Star Trek: TNG. Boo, I say.
October 15, 2010
Okay... not a real fan of short stories... but... the Z's in my library are rather short.... and since I don't feel up to Zelazny Imma gonna try Zahn (which is one of Curt's contributions to the library by the by)... I'll let you know... Well. That might have begun a change on my opinion of shorts... some very good stories, and very interesting writing. I'm giving Mr. Zahn 5 out of 5 stars... would have given him five for just The Challenge. Seriously good entertainment and a real thought provoker.
August 12, 2009
Great classic Sci-fi stories...Unfortunately, as far as I know, if you want to read this book, you'd better find it at a library that still has it, or order from an Amazon.com vendor because it's been out of print for awhile. :-(
July 19, 2012
Original and incredibly creative.
April 14, 2015
premetto che ho letto solo l'ultima Storia ovvero cascade point, l'ho trovata interessante ma un po' pesante da leggere
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