Invisible Kingdoms
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The Silurian Tales Volume 2 The final volume of a master work by one of the SF genre's greatest short story writers. The stories in Steven Utley's Silurian Tales have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, SciFiction, F&SF, and Cosmos, and have been beguiling readers with glimpses of prehistoric life since the mid-1990s.
Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg.
These tales have been described by Brian Stableford in Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia as "[t]he most elaborate reconstruction of a past era in recent speculative fiction." The series employs a variety of literary techniques in recounting the adventures and misadventures of a scientific expedition in the Paleozoic Era and also address some implications of the "many-worlds" hypothesis in quantum physics; several of the stories have been reprinted in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies and the Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This is the second volume collecting Utley's Silurian Tales, following November 2012's The 400-Million-Year Itch. Presented in an internally chronological order, 15 stories and novellas continue the ongoing narrative of a scientific expedition that has traveled through a space-time anomaly to the Earth of 400 million years ago, during the Paleozoic Era. Utley focuses on an ever-changing cast of scientists and creative types, using them as mouthpieces to debate politics, religion, parallel universe theory, love, environmentalism, and other weighty matters. There's an understated disdain for big business, a melancholy yearning for a pristine world, and a keen understanding of human nature running throughout the stories, many of which are linked only by shared characters. Playing with the many-worlds hypothesis, Utley hints at a much larger picture without giving straight answers. No aspect of the premise goes unconsidered in these intelligent, provocative character- and concept-driven tales, making this collection a treat for readers in need of a challenge.
