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The Farthest Reaches
Kyrie story by Poul AndersonThe Dance of the Changer & the Three (1968) story by Terry CarrThe Worm That Flies story by Brian W. AldissTomorrow is a Million Years (1966) story by J.G. BallardMind Out of Time story by Keith LaumerCrusade story by Arthur C. ClarkeTo the Dark Star story by Robert SilverbergA Night in Elf Hill story by Norman SpinradPond Water story by John BrunnerSulwen's Planet story by Jack VanceThe Inspector story by James McKimmey Jr.Ranging story by John JakesForeword essay by Joseph Elder
177 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 15, 2019
Mindwebs audiobook 32 contains this story “A Night in Elf Hill” by Norman Spinrad. A fascinating plea from a roving space explorer who describes how he once found a planet where he experienced a brief “trip” to his personal idea of heaven. As his retirement looms he’s afraid to return so he begs his more sensible brother for reasons to not seek paradise as he knows if he goes back he will die in the dream. I suspect it might be a metaphor ... €B;-• )>
Spoilers
This ultimate in pleasurable sensations was brought to him courtesy of a chance encounter in a swamp with an ancient artefact constructed by an hi tech alien race, now presumed to be extinct. Despite falling in love with the woman he meets in the futuristic carnival city where subjective time is stretched to eternity his curiosity impels him to ask - against her emotive advice how his ecstatic and awesome experience is even possible given that he knows that he is really in the swamp. Dejected and ejected from his paradise, in the swamp once more, he learns the unpalatable truth, the artefact was just a toy that despite its sentient nature had been abandoned a billion years ago. A skull nearby bears testament to the veracity of the legend of the city and the fate of anyone who encounters the artefact.
Speculative Pondering inspired by above plus Greg Egan
Will humanity upload itself into computers shrunk to the nanometer scale, embedded in rocks encrusted with photosynthetic bacteria or solar cells or powered by time crystals? Would we miss having bodies if we could simulate them? What could you do if you could set your clock speed to think at PC speeds like 5Ghz or 5THz or 5PHz? Perhaps we would slow them down so we could effectively live forever, it’s probably the best way to get through the dark ages when all the stars have gone out and it’s still trillions of years before the black holes start to evaporate?
Spoilers
This ultimate in pleasurable sensations was brought to him courtesy of a chance encounter in a swamp with an ancient artefact constructed by an hi tech alien race, now presumed to be extinct. Despite falling in love with the woman he meets in the futuristic carnival city where subjective time is stretched to eternity his curiosity impels him to ask - against her emotive advice how his ecstatic and awesome experience is even possible given that he knows that he is really in the swamp. Dejected and ejected from his paradise, in the swamp once more, he learns the unpalatable truth, the artefact was just a toy that despite its sentient nature had been abandoned a billion years ago. A skull nearby bears testament to the veracity of the legend of the city and the fate of anyone who encounters the artefact.
Speculative Pondering inspired by above plus Greg Egan
Will humanity upload itself into computers shrunk to the nanometer scale, embedded in rocks encrusted with photosynthetic bacteria or solar cells or powered by time crystals? Would we miss having bodies if we could simulate them? What could you do if you could set your clock speed to think at PC speeds like 5Ghz or 5THz or 5PHz? Perhaps we would slow them down so we could effectively live forever, it’s probably the best way to get through the dark ages when all the stars have gone out and it’s still trillions of years before the black holes start to evaporate?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2022
12 stories of which maybe 3 were worth the time. As one would expect I suppose of a book of this age some frighteningly dated racial stereotypes.
February 7, 2022
"A Night in Elf Hill" the best, by far in this collection.
February 7, 2017
Some of these stories are way out there... and not in a good way. However, the two or three that are good are *great*— and worth slogging though the others. My favorites (in order) are Mind Out of Time, Kyrie, The Inspector, and A Night in Elf Hill.
March 5, 2011
A collection of twelve science fiction short stories by established authors.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews