Earth Is but a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future

by Damien Broderick

Deep time: the ultimate frontier, tomorrow's most romantic landscape. Our sun is a vast, sullen wheel hanging at the horizon. Beings walk the dying world in its red light, but few are human. Robots return from the edges of the galaxy to mourn their lost ancestors. Mages weave plots, their science so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic. In the vastness of eternity, Earth is but a star. Only science fantasy knows the paths into this wondrous realm. A remarkable blend of myth, science and pure dark imagination, science fantasy is a genre still little known to science fiction enthusiasts or critics. Here, for the first time, many of its key tales are gathered, together with new essays that illuminate their strange power-and provide a treasury of superb, unusual entertainment.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Fiction, Short Stories

466 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Damien Francis Broderick was an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits him with the first usage of the term "virtual reality" in science-fiction, in his 1982 novel The Judas Mandala.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and cohesive collection of essays and short stories collected from across 80 years of sci-fi, with a bent towards examples of the post-human condition. Particular highlights are Pamela Zoline's kitchen-sink entropic collapse, John Brunner's titular disturbing meta-historical wanderventure and Alice K. Turner's discussion of the horrific moral confusion of Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named Shayol". Particularly useful to those interested in the genre is Brian Stableford's eclipsing the span of far-future writing, from Poe in 1948 to the present.

[Elindur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent collection of short stories, and I was shocked to see a Poe story I'd never read in it. All of the stories within are fascinating looks at our universe from differing points of view. The essays were wonderfully written, although I did skip a few of them just due to a lack of ability to get drawn into them. My personal favorite, however, was Pamela Zoline's story. The way a personal breakdown is related to the way both the macro and microcosms of our lives interact and mirror one another is a truly novel style of storytelling that have planted the "I need to read more Zoline" worm in my brain. Overall, a wonderful short story collection with some thought provoking essays within.