The Best of R. A. Lafferty
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Tor Essentials presents science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.
Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O’Connor, Flann O’Brien, and Gene Wolfe.
The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat imagination, ranging from classics like “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” and “The Primary Education of the Cameroi” to his Hugo Award-winning “Eurema’s Dam.”
Introduced by Neil Gaiman, the volume also contains story introductions and afterwords by, among many others, Michael Dirda, Samuel R. Delany, John Scalzi, Connie Willis, Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Robson, Harlan Ellison, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and Patton Oswalt.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award winner Lafferty (1914 2002) wrote the 22 stories of this distinguished collection in the 1960s and '70s. Offbeat, usually joyful, and always a few steps beyond reality, these tales showcase Lafferty's humanism and linguistic mastery. Lafferty lived most of his life in Oklahoma and drew on the U.S. Western and Native American tall-tale traditions for stories like "Narrow Valley," which celebrates human decency and resilience. In Hugo winner "Eurema's Dam," Lafferty's schlemiel inventor Albert hilariously and eerily forecasts today's computer-centric world. "The Primary Education of the Camiroi," presented as a report to a PTA, skewers self-serving and illogical leaps in education, like speed reading and curriculum overhauls; it even suggests that "a little constructive book burning, especially in the field of education" may be necessary for human progress. Each story is accompanied by an introduction by a noted contemporary science fiction author, among them Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman, and Nancy Kress. In clever prose, Lafferty invites readers both to deplore human frailties and learn to laugh at them, resulting in a collection to reread and savor.
