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Carciofus Is that cake frosting? from Alpha Tucanae I Since: May, 2010
Is that cake frosting?
#1: Mar 21st 2012 at 3:00:06 PM

He's one of the greatest science fiction writers ever, I think — personally, I consider him vastly superior even to Philip Dick, but strangely enough he's not all that known. Probably because he did not actually write all that much; however, what little he wrote is most excellent. He's got a really strange style, but a really evocative one IMO.

Personally, I especially enjoyed his Under Old Earth; but really, there is nothing that he wrote that was short of exceptional. For example, the following passage is, I think, one of the finest ones ever committed to any writing system:

"Dreary useless centuries of happiness, in which all the unhappy were corrected or adjusted or killed. Unbearable desolate happiness without the sting of grief, the wine of rage, the hot fumes of fear. How many of us have ever tasted the acid, icy taste of old resentment? That's what people really lived for in the Ancient Days, when they pretended to be happy and were actually alive with grief, rage, fury, hate, malice, and hope! Those people bred like mad. They populated the stars while they dreamed of killing each other, secretly or openly. Their plays concerned murder or betrayal or illegal love. Now we have no murder. We cannot imagine any kind of love which is illegal. Can you imagine the Murkins with their highway net? Who can fly anywhere today without seeing that net of enormous highways? Those roads are ruined, but they're still here. You can see the abominable things quite clearly from the moon. Don't think about the roads. Think of the millions of vehicles that ran on those roads, the people filled with greed and rage and hate, rushing past each other with their engines on fire. They say that fifty thousand a year were killed on the roads alone. We would call that a war. What people they must have been, to rush day and night and to build things which would help other people to rush even more! They were different from us. They must have been wild, dirty, free. Lusting for life, perhaps, in a way that we do not. We can easily go a thousand times faster than they ever went, but who, nowadays, bothers to go? Why go? It's the same there as here, except for a few fighters or technicians." He smiled at his friends and added, ". . . and Lords of the Instrumentality, like ourselves. We go for the reasons of the Instrumentality. Not ordinary people reasons. Ordinary people don't have much reason to do anything. They work at the jobs which we think up for them, to keep them happy while the robots and the underpeople do the real work. They walk. They make love. But they are never unhappy.

Is anybody else here a fan of this author?

edited 21st Mar '12 4:00:28 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#2: Mar 22nd 2012 at 6:08:49 PM

I've liked what I've read from him, but I'm having an awfully hard time actually finding any of his stuff available in book form.

Carciofus Is that cake frosting? from Alpha Tucanae I Since: May, 2010
Is that cake frosting?
#3: Mar 23rd 2012 at 9:06:23 AM

I hear you, it's not easy to find his books. And he did not actually write that much. But what he wrote was fantastic.

edited 23rd Mar '12 9:06:37 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from A Place (Old Master)
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#4: Mar 23rd 2012 at 5:15:44 PM

Okay, just read that story and it was definitely something. Makes me want to read more.

As for finding his stuff, the other wiki tells me that there's a volume collecting all his short stories, titled The Rediscovery of Man.

edited 23rd Mar '12 5:19:13 PM by MetaFour

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#5: Mar 23rd 2012 at 6:25:09 PM

Yeah, but my browsing of nearby bookstores and libraries hasn't turned up any copies, and it doesn't seem to be available on Kindle, either.

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