Meeting in Infinity: Allegories & Extrapolations [Hardcover]

John Kessel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kessel is hardly prolific--since 1980 he has produced perhaps two dozen short stories, written one novel ( Good News from Outer Space ) and coauthored another ( Freedom Beach , with James Patrick Kelly)--but his work always has a powerful emotional kick and a sharp postmodern edge. This first collection of his stories showcases his talents in wildly diverse forms. "The Big Dream" neatly critiques the disturbing subtexts of hard-boiled detective fiction by presenting a bitter, frustrated Raymond Chandler who imposes his fevered visions on the people around him. "The Pure Product" features thoroughly amoral time-travelers from the future who are seeking thrills in the present day. A young stockbroker finds himself inexplicably transported into Moby-Dick , as a deckhand on Ahab's Pequod, in the Nebula Award-winning "Another Orphan." The brief but powerful "Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner" suggests that sometimes dreams are better not attained. The final tale, "Buffalo," best epitomizes Kessel's grace and sensitivity: in it he tells of his father's meeting with H. G. Wells, "which never took place," and along the way illuminates the complex moral forces that affect working men like his father. Witty, daring and intelligent, Kessel produces some of the best science fiction in the genre.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The author of Good News from Outer Space ( LJ 9/15/89) displays his literary approach to speculative fiction in this collection of 14 stories including 1983 Nebula award winner "Another Orphan."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 309 pages
• Publisher: Arkham House Pub; 1st edition (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870541641
• ISBN-13: 978-0870541643
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,839,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls John Kessel, "one of the writers capable of bending the tools of science fiction upon the human psyche." In a starred review of his 1997 story collection The Pure Product, Publisher's Weekly said, "Kessel is our American Brian Aldiss, capable of the most artful and rigorous literary composition, but with a mischievous genius that inclines him toward speculative fiction . . . he writes with subtlety and great wit . . . plus, his sense of comedy is remarkable."

A writer of erudite comic and satiric short fiction, Kessel received the Nebula Award for his early novella "Another Orphan", a fantasy about a commodities broker who awakes one morning to find himself trapped in the novel Moby Dick, and more recently for "Pride and Prometheus", in which Mary Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice meets Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein. His short fiction has been collected in three volumes, Meeting In Infinity (which contains "Another Orphan"), The Pure Product, and The Baum Plan for Financial Independence (which contains "Pride and Prometheus").

Kessel has published three novels: Freedom Beach (with James Patrick Kelly), Good News from Outer Space, and Corrupting Dr. Nice, which writer Kim Stanley Robinson has called, "the best time travel novel ever written."

Kessel's story "A Clean Escape" was dramatized as the first episode of the 2007 ABC TV series Masters of Science Fiction, starring Sam Waterston and Judy Davis. Though he's taken time out to write plays and perform a role in the independent film "The Delicate Art of the Rifle," Kessel teaches literature and creative writing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars I actually quite enjoyed this one., February 17, 2000

By 

Matthew E. Rorie "Space Cowboy" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Meeting in Infinity: Allegories & Extrapolations (Hardcover)

I'm a fan of short form science fiction, and this is one of the most under-appreciated collections I can recall. The enchantment lies in the unexplained premise behind most of the stories, situations that are taken for granted, as if they're perfectly normal. Such as the endless drive down an infinite highway mentioned in the Kirkus review. The writing is excellent and overall the collection is very entertaining.

4.0 out of 5 stars Literate SF, a rare bird, November 18, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Meeting in Infinity: Allegories & Extrapolations (Hardcover)

If, as the Kirkus Review notes, you merely want a book as entertainment, you'll be bored by Kessel's stories. His work is intelligent, literate, and is intended to challenge readers. A cut above the mindless formula of most science fiction.