Kaleidoscope
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- 1,99 €
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- 1,99 €
Publisher Description
Thirteen dazzling tales by a master of science fiction and fantasy, including:
THE WEATHER'S FINE - In our world, time is money, but in Harry Turtledove's alternate world, weather is time. And for Tom and Donna, happiness requires a temperature of 1968.
THE LAST ARTICLE - The Nazis had conquered the British Empire. But what use were Panzers and storm troopers against the Empire's most troublesome subject - Mahatma Gandhi?
THE CASTLE OF THE SPARROWHAWK - Prince Rupen accepted the faeries' challenge to win his heart's desire. And though they told him the price of failure, they did not mention the penalty of success!
GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE - If Jack the Ripper was a vampire, who better to stop him than Victorian London's other vampires? And who else but they could arrive at so sublimely fitting a punishment?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an aptly titled collection, the author of A Different Flesh offers 13 entertaining and highly varied tales, mingling SF with fantasy and mainstream fiction. ``A Difficult Undertaking,'' set in the Empire of Videssos depicted in four earlier Turtledove novels, shows a commander under siege outwitting his enemy with cunning and dead pigeons. ``Gentlemen of the Shade'' are refined Victorian vampires who exact a heavy penalty from Jack the Ripper for poaching (and poor taste). The numbers in the forecast are not degrees Fahrenheit but dates in ``The Weather's Fine'': when the temperature hits 68, bell bottoms and incense bloom for those who can't take refuge in ``year conditioning,'' which provides a stable 1980s environment. In ``The Road Not Taken,'' aliens are appalled by their discovery of human beings' exceptionally warlike abilities, especially when they unwittingly give these dangerous creatures the technology for unlimited access to the universe. ``Crybaby'' is an infant with suspect motives whose wail--``like the sudden malignant whine of a dentist's drill''--pushes his father to commit an atrocity.
