CHAINS OF THE SEA: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction

by Robert -- Ed. Silverberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1973

The Silverberg-edited Day the Sun Stood Still (KR, 1972) posited three scenarios for Earth's more or less tumultuous destruction. Here a younger generation of sci fi prophets see the human race snuffed out with hardly a whimper. ""And Us, Too, I Guess"" reports on a ""very quiet cataclysm"" in which mankind's death comes as the inglorious by-product of the extinction of a certain vitamin K manufacturing bacteria. In ""Chains of the Sea"" only a psychologically fragmented boy is in touch with earth's other Beings and stands by helplessly while they and the computers plot with alien invaders to increase entropy and ""finish winding down the world."" Finally in the macabre ""Vision of Saint Sebastian"" a pitiful Pope Julian makes a pilgrimage through the ravaged countryside hauling the body of his dead wife, who was the previous pope, only to find that like the anti-Christ Sebastian he is not even human. Geo. Alec Effinger, Gardiner R. Duzois and Gordon Eklund are not writing for a teenage audience, and a good many adults will find their time sense, not to mention their sensibilities, strained by this triple effort. Only Eklund's vision can really be considered innovative, but all three stories are science fiction grown beyond its mechanistic phase and demand a grown-up audience.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Nelson

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION