Getting to Know You
Stories
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- 5,99 €
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- 5,99 €
Publisher Description
Not since William Gibson and Bruce Sterling galvanized science fiction in the 1980s has the emergence of a new writer been heralded with such acclaim as that attending David Marusek, whose brilliant first novel, Counting Heads, appeared to rave reviews in 2005. But Marusek did not come out of nowhere. Aficionados of the genre had already taken note of his groundbreaking short fiction: masterfully written, profoundly thought-out examinations of futures so real they seemed virtually inevitable.
Now, in this collection of ten short stories, Marusek’s fierce imagination and dazzling extrapolative gifts are on full display. Five of the stories, including the Sturgeon Award-winning “The Wedding Album,” a shattering look at the unintended human consequences of advanced technology, are set in the same future as Counting Heads. All ten showcase Marusek’ s talent for literate, provocative science fiction of the very highest order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marusek, in a blurb for this superb collection of 10 stories (all the shorter SF he's published to date), gives fair warning when he says he lays his stories "like traps and bait them with shiny ideas." Since the author lives in Alaska, it's no surprise to find that his characters inhabit extreme environments, both physical and psychological. "The Earth Is on the Mend" and "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz" are set in the Arctic, with characters made pragmatic by cold circumstance. Similarly stark is the world of "Cabbages and Kale or How We Downsized North America" (one of several entries that are sketches for his 2006 novel, Counting Heads), where characters fight to stay ahead of change, and one bad decision can topple a world. Marusek's "shiny ideas" cloned laborers, electronic "proxies," the "boutique economy" sparkle, but these assured stories also draw on core SF themes: in the face of change, what does it mean to be human, and where do we draw the line between helping ourselves and hurting others?
