"Gordon R. Dickson - The Human Edge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

informally, Friends of the Space Program. I think he would approve of this dedication.
For

Michael P. Anderson
Kalpana Chawla
Laurel Clark
Rick D. Husband
William C. McCool
Ilan Ramon
Pioneers on the Star Road
BOOKS by GORDON R. DICKSON
The Right to Arm Bears
The Magnificent Wilf
Mindspan

Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!
(with Poul Anderson)

Hokas Pokas
(with Poul Anderson)

The Human Edge
(selected by Hank Davis)

INTRODUCTION:
THE DICKSON EDGE
Wrong!
I know what you're thinking. . . .
(And it's not "Do I feel lucky?" If you're looking at this page, you have a hefty hunk of first-rate
science fiction by Gordon R. Dickson in hand, so youare lucky, regardless of what you may feel. I
wouldn't recommend buying a lottery ticket, howeverтАФlucking into a Dickson book may have used up
your quota of good fortune for the day. . . .)
You're thinking, these are twelve stories by the same author, all on the same subject, so there's
liable to be a certain similarity from one story to the next. . . .
Actually you are right about there being a similarity from one story to the next, except that the
similarity is that all the stories are well-crafted, ingeniously plotted, show a wide range of tone
(sometimes amusing, sometimes grim, sometimes a bit of both), and never fail to entertain.
Or, to put it more succinctly, the certain similarity is that these stories are all by the same grand
master: Gordon R. Dickson.
Why should anyone want to listen to Bach's Goldberg Variations, after all? I mean, two sides of an
LPтАФif you remember LPsтАФor an entire CD taken up by thirty (or thirty-one, if you count the reprise of
the aria) variations on one tune, and played on one instrument, either harpsichord or piano . . . how
much variety can there be in that, right?
I'm not going to claim that Gordon R. Dickson was in Bach's league (but then, who in at least the
last 100 years has been?), but as with Bach, you are dealing with a high order of talent and
craftsmanship. And Dickson can ring ingenious and fresh changes on one theme.
 The theme: when human meets alien, even a more technologically advanced alien, said alien had
better not get too cocky. Humans can be very tricky when they need to be, giving them an edgeтАФthe
human edge.
James Blish, reviewing a Dickson novel several years ago, commented that while many critics