The Great Short Fiction of Barrington Bayley
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Nine brilliant stories of infinite space and alien consciousness, suffused with a sense of wonder...
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A remarkable (though astonishingly bleak) assembly of experiments in the carrying of story ideas to the end of their tether. -- John Clute, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
The cream of Bayley's short fiction... complex, innovative, bold and striking. -- Brian Stableford, Vector
[Bayley] has the ineffable, unfakeable genius of a true SF visionary: of Wells, Stapledon, Ballard; of Bester, Dick, and Farmer. -- Bruce Sterling, Cheap Truth --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
The cream of Bayley's short fiction... complex, innovative, bold and striking. -- Brian Stableford, Vector
[Bayley] has the ineffable, unfakeable genius of a true SF visionary: of Wells, Stapledon, Ballard; of Bester, Dick, and Farmer. -- Bruce Sterling, Cheap Truth --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
barkingly brilliant,
This review is from: Knights of the Limits (Hardcover)
This is Bayley at the peak of his powers, barkingly brilliant. The thought experiments he weaves into a mosaic of energetic stories works its way to you like Borges on speed, a strange hybrid of Rudy Rucker, Italo Calvino and A. E. van Vogt - yet the core of it remains inescapably Bayley's own brand of strange sf. It's more like speculative cosmology, except Freeman Dyson would never have come up with ideas like Bayley's:Like; what if the universe was completely filled with rock? And each of us is living in a little bubble in the rock. In other words, the basic premise of the story is impossible because the universe is not full of rock. But he's like, "what if it was?" And he goes on to describe attempts at space travel in this universe, the problems that arise, and ends the whole shebang with an orgasmic zen buzz to your frontal lobes. Wow. And then there more, each story going off on wild tangents into space and time and the lack thereof. If you think you're up for the ride, go for it. But be warned - this is NOT extrapolative hard sf, this is utterly original speculative stuff that will mess with your notions of reality and boggle the mind.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
By C. S. Junker "soul_survivor" (Burien, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Knights of the Limits (Paperback)
It's easy to underestimate Barrington Bayley at first glance. His prose is a straightforward pulp style, without literary pretensions or stylistic experiments. No SF writer, however, is better at launching you into a weird universe within a few sentences and weaving a torrent of madcap ideas into full-throttle, action-packed plots. If you like the writing of Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, or Robert Sheckley, you're almost certain to be a Bayley fan, and this collection of superb stories is a good place to start. Bayley's work combines the social concerns of Dick, Bester, Sheckley, and Frederik Pohl with some of the more philosophical issues of "hard" SF writers such as Heinlein and Poul Anderson. Pure entertainment brimming with thought-provoking ideas --- what more can you ask from a book of science fiction stories?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
barkingly brilliant,
This review is from: The Knights of the Limits (Paperback)
This is Bayley at the peak of his powers, barkingly brilliant. The thought experiments he weaves into a mosaic of energetic stories works its way to you like Borges on speed, a strange hybrid of Rudy Rucker, Italo Calvino and A. E. van Vogt - yet the core of it remains inescapably Bayley's own brand of strange sf. It's more like speculative cosmology, except Freeman Dyson would never have come up with ideas like Bayley's:Like; what if the universe was completely filled with rock? And each of us is living in a little bubble in the rock. In other words, the basic premise of the story is impossible because the universe is not full of rock. But he's like, "what if it was?" And he goes on to describe attempts at space travel in this universe, the problems that arise, and ends the whole shebang with an orgasmic zen buzz to your frontal lobes. Wow. And then there more, each story going off on wild tangents into space and time and the lack thereof. If you think you're up for the ride, go for it. But be warned - this is NOT extrapolative hard sf, this is utterly original speculative stuff that will mess with your notions of reality and boggle the mind.
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