1983 Short Stories (Study Guide): Red Star, Winter Orbit

by Books LLC (Editor)

This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Red Star, Winter Orbit. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: "Red Star, Winter Orbit" is a short story written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the 1980's. It was first published in Omni in July 1983, and later collected in Burning Chrome, a 1986 anthology of Gibson's early short fiction, and in Sterling's 1986 cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades. The story is set in an alternate future where the Soviet Union controls most of the Earth's resources, especially oil. As a result of this the United States is no longer a dominant economic power on earth and the Soviets have won the space race. Science fiction critic Takayuki Tatsumi regards the story as a descriptive account of "the failure of the dream of space exploration," reminiscent of Ballard's "inner space/outer space" motif. Gibson scholar Tatiani Rapatzikou commented that the motif of the space station was used by the authors as a "symbol of the tension and uneasiness the characters or readers experience every time they deal with the artificiality of their technological world." The story takes place on the Soviet space station Kosmograd ("Cosmic City"), which consists of a number of Salyuts linked together. The station has both civilian and military roles; the military portion is a base for the operation for two large particle beam weapons for shooting down ICBMs. The civilian side, once a hub for space exploration, is now reduced to a maintenance role for the engineers running the station. Most of the story takes place in one of the Salyuts that has been set aside as the "Museum of the Soviet Triumph in Space." Its caretaker is cosmonaut Colonel Yuri Vasilevich Korolev, the first man on Mars. As the story opens, the military role is no longer required now that ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=764408

42 pages, Paperback

Published September 14, 2010

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