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THE BLEEDING MAN and Other Science Fiction Stories by Craig Strete

THE BLEEDING MAN and Other Science Fiction Stories

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Pub Date: Oct. 12th, 1977
Publisher: Greenwillow

Strete is an American Indian who writes science fiction--and who effectively writes into his stories some of the non-material phenomena, accepted by his people, which ""simply do not compute"" in a technological society. In ""Into Every Rain a Little Life Must Fall""--the first selection here and the most standardized--the sterile routine of a ""wombcop"" who monitors the streets through a ""console web"" is shattered by the appearance of a ghost. ""A Sunday Visit with GreatGrandfather"" is the very funny story of an old Amerindian whose ""curse of Cheroboa"" routs the space invaders he has mistaken for white men Come to throw his great-grandson into the slammer. And the title story, by far the strangest, pits a supernaturally endowed 23-year-old Indian against the scientists who keep him for study because he has been bleeding profusely since birth. The stories from a caged monkey's and a space colonist's (read white settler's) viewpoints are thinner but polished; another, the most Indian, thunders with grim, ancient prophecy. Though the pieces are a touch slick, a bit broad, for an adult collection, Strete's proficiency with a variety of science fiction conventions makes this a highly satisfactory sampler for the beginner. And that (literal) extra dimension is expanding.