"Ian R. MacLeod - Nevermore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

NEVERMORE
Ian R. MacLeod

тАЬNevermoreтАЭ appeared in the July 1998 issue of AsimovтАЩs, with an
illustration by Mark Evans. British writer Ian MacLeod has been one of
the hottest new writers of the nineties to date, and, as the decade
progresses, his work continues to grow in power and deepen in maturity.
MacLeod has published a slew of strong stories throughout the nineties
in AsimovтАЩs, as well as in markets such as Interzone, Weird Tales,
Amazing, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Several of
these stories made the cut for one or another of the various тАЬBest of the
YearтАЭ antholo-gies; in 1990, in fact, he appeared in three different Best of
the Year anthologies with three different sto-ries, certainly a rare
distinction. His first novel. The Great Wheel, was published in 1997,
followed by a major collection of his short work, Voyages by Star-light.
His novella тАЬThe Summer Isles,тАЭ an AsimovтАЩs story, is on the final Hugo
ballot as these words are being typed. MacLeod lives with his wife and
young daughter in the West Midlands of England.

Here, in a stylish and compelling look at a deca-dent modern world
that ought to be Utopia, he proves once again that ArtтАФlike PassionтАФis
in the eye of the beholder.

****

Now that he couldnтАЩt afford to buy enough reality, Gustav had no option but
to paint what he saw in his dreams.

With no sketchpad to bring back, no palette or cursor, his head rolling
up from the pillow and his mouth dry and his jaw aching from the booze
heтАЩd drunk the evening beforeтАФwhich was the cheapest means heтАЩd yet
found of getting to sleepтАФhe was left with just that one chance, and a few
trailing wisps of something that might once have been beautiful before he
had to face the void of the day.

It hadnтАЩt started like this, but he could see by now that this was how it
had probably ended. Representational art had had its heyday, and for a
while heтАЩd been feted like the bright new talent heтАЩd once been sure he
was. And big lumpy actuality that you could smell and taste and get under
your fingernails would probably come back into style againтАФlong after it
had ceased to matter to him.
 So that was it. Load upon load of self-pity falling down upon him this
morning from the damp-stained ceiling. What had he been dreaming?
SomethingтАФsurely some-thing. Otherwise being here and being Gustav
wouldnтАЩt come as this big a jolt. He shouldтАЩve got more used to it than this
by now.... Gustav scratched himself, and dis-covered that he also had an
erection, which was another signтАФhadnтАЩt he read once, somewhere?тАФthat
youтАЩd been dreaming dreams of the old-fashioned kind, unsimulated,
unaided. A sign, anyway, of a kind of biological opti-mism. The hope that
there might just be a hope.