"Robert Reed - Good Mountain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

GOOD MOUNTAIN
Robert Reed




Robert Reed sold his first story in 1986 and quickly established himself as a frequent
contributor to Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction andAsimov’s Science Fiction
The
, as well as selling many stories to Fiction Age, Universe, New Destinies,
Science
Tomorrow, Synergy, Starlight, and elsewhere. Reed may be one of the most prolific of
today’s young writers, particularly at short fiction lengths, seriously rivaled for that posit
only by authors such as Stephen Baxter and Brian Stableford. And—also like Baxter an
Stableford—he manages to keep up a very high standard of qualityprolific,
while being
something that is not at all easy to do. Reed stories such as “Sister Alice.” “Brother Pe
“Decency.” “Savior.” “The Remoras.” “Chrysalis.” “Whiptail.” “The Utility Man.” “Marrow
“Birth Day.” “Blind.” “The Toad of Heaven.” “Stride.” “The Shape of Everything.” “Gues
Honor.” “Waging Good,” and “Killing the Morrow,” among at least a half dozen others e
as strong, count as among some of the best short work produced by anyone in the eig
and nineties. Many of his best stories were assembled in his first collection,
The Dragons of
Springplace. Nor is he nonprolific as a novelist, having turned out eight novels since the
of the eighties, includingLeeshore, The Hormone Jungle, Black Milk, The
The
Remarkables, Down the Bright Way, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks,
Beneath the Gated Sky, Marrow, andSister Alice. His most recent books include two
chapbook novellas, andFlavors of My Genius, a collection, Cuckoo’s Boys, and
Mere The
a novel, Well of Stars. Reed lives with his family in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The

Reed has visited the far future in his Sister Alice stories and in his sequence of
stories about the Great Ship, as well as in stories such as “Whiptail” and “Marrow,” but
he takes us deeper into the future than he ever has before, to a world whose origin is l
the labyrinth of time, a world where, as a group of randomly thrown together travelers i
about to learn, everything is about to change—and not for the better.

****

A DOT ON OLD PAPER

“World’s edge. Approaching now… World’s Edge!”

The worm’s caretaker was an elderly fellow named Brace. Standing in the middle
the long intestinal tract, he wore a dark gray uniform, patched but scrupulously clean,
soft-soled boots and a breathing mask that rode on his hip. Strong hands held an
angelwood bucket filled with a thick, sour-smelling white salve. His name was emboss
above his shirt pocket, preceded by his rank, which was Master. Calling out with a dee