"Alexei Panshin - Farewell to Yesterdays Tomorrows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Panshin Alexei)

“Arpad” first published inQuark 2,© 1971 by Coronet Communications, Inc.


“How Can We Sink When We Can Fly?” first published inFour Futures, © 1971 by Alexei Panshin.


“Sky Blue” first published inAmazing Stories, © 1972, by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.


“When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal” first published inUniverse 4, © 1974 by Terry Carr.


“Lady Sunshine and the Magoon of Beatus” first appeared inEpoch, published by Berkley Publishing
Corp.© 1975 by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood.


“Farewell to Yesterday’s Tomorrow” first published inGalaxy magazine,© 1974 by U.P.D. Publishing
Corporation under International Universal and Pan-American Copyright Convention.

Preface

The twelve science fiction and fantasy stories and the final essay that make up this book are printed here
in the order in which they were originally written. They were first published between 1966 and 1975, a
turbulent time in this country, and a time of great changes in my own life. These stories are both a product
and a reflection of their time.

These stories have been a means for me of wrestling with the enigma of being alive. Over and over again,
each in its own way, they ask the same childish question: What does it mean to be an adult human being?

So many questions that we ask when we are children are never answered. They are indefinitely
postponed. This question—a child’s question—was mine. And it was never answered for me to my
satisfaction.

What is it to be an adult human being?

It still seems to me to be as urgent a question as it ever was. In view of the desperation of the present
human condition, a desperate question. If we human beings are to survive, we must know who we are
and what we may become.

The question is deliberately posed in the form of science fiction. Science fiction is a means of stepping
outside ourselves and our present condition in search of new perception. If we already knew how to be
truly adult, if we already knew how to be truly human beings, we would not be in our present difficulties.
Is our personal future and the future of mankind limited and cloudy? The answer indicated by science
fiction and by these stories is: only if we are unable to change ourselves.

If we could change ourselves, what might we not become?

So here these stories are, from “What’s Your Excuse?” to “Lady Sunshine and the Magoon of Beatus.”