"Carol Emshwiller - Childhood of the Human Hero (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

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CAROL EMSHWILLER

The Childhood
of the Human Hero*

Science fiction is an, attitude about today and what tomorrow could become. Nothing definite,
nothing more than an attitude. We think, rationally enough, that in: twenty-five years we will be
turning another century, the glorious year 2001. will be upon us. But who will be the ' men of
that period? How are we molding them today to play their parts? Here is a glimpse of a boy who
will then be a man. Your fingers are in the reality-clay, as are mine; together we are shaping his
world. This then is "The Childhood of the Human Hero," the boy who will inhabit the world we are
creating for him with the passing of each day.

'From Joseph Campbell.
A little bit of you in him and a little bit of me and a little bit of him in you and I see a bit
of my youngest brother. He's coming in, going out, coming in, going out, and it's another world
outside which might be inner space which is outer space to him. "Captain, your ship is approaching
a doomed planet at twice the speed of light."

He wants to order a pair of handcuffs at $2.95

A book on ventriloquism at 98 cents

He wants a realistic, plastic, plucked chicken, $5.99

A pair of sunglasses with one-way mirror lenses

A "patented 3-D hypno-coin" that comes free with 25 lessons in hypnotism

And one hundred stick-on stamps of the scariest movie monster

Mild-mannered boy wonder looks like any other average boy, but there's a trick to it. There's more
than meets the eye and good deeds are being done every day in spite of appearances.

He has a secret identity.

Going into orbit around one hot world too many, he breaks pencils with a flick of the fingers of
one hand and doesn't know he's doing it. He straightens paper clips trying to remember that France
has a population of 51,400,000; that the major cities are: Paris, Lille, Bordeaux, Marseilles;
highest point, Mont Blanc, 15,781 feet; principal language, French.

He's the one with the new boots, just the kind he'd

always wanted; wide belt, black turtleneck sweater. Next year his hair will be even longer because
that's the only way you can tell the kids in the Common Concern Club from the Young Americans for
Freedom.

When he grows a mustache (this much later), it'll be the long, yellow/brown kind that curls up at