"Intoduction and Foreword by Poul Anderson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

a hero, the loudest and most distracting sound track of any
film ever made, and unrelieved boredom. After the press
preview before Kubrick eliminated an hour of non-action,
several perceptive critics booed.
There was no booing of Clarke's novel, however. Not only
was it assured of vast sales because of its connection with the
movie, 2001 was snatched up by eager film viewers who
looked for answers to questions raised by the motion picture.
Clarke provided those answers literately, intelligently, and
provocatively. Readers familiar with his earlier Childhood's
End might have expected as much. Fortunately for science
fiction, the tens of thousands of readers attracted to the novel
by the film were treated to serious probing of some profound
questions: What is the nature of man in space? What are
some of the implications of genuine interstellar contact? What
is the mutation beyond man?
These questions are part of the common coinage of science
fiction, to be sure, but Clarke's handling of them insured
many sympathetic readers for science fiction, particularly
among people who would not otherwise know an Apollo cap-
sule from a Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic com-
puter, otherwise known as HAL. If only for performing this
service, Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably, the most
valuable novel of the year.
Persistent rumors during the last year or two have told of
a coming sequel to Frank Herbert's Nebula-winning novel,
Dune. Herbert finally confirmed the rumors when he finished
the actual writing in mid-1968. While the continuation of the
story of Paul Muad'Dib as emperor must await 1969 publica-
tion and evaluation, Herbert's 1968 novel, The Santaroga
Barrier, was not one of the Nebula finalists. "The critics may
have subconsciously compared the limited scope of The
Santaroga Barrier with the epic vision of Dune, but The
Santaroga Barrier perhaps deserves more consideration than
it was given. One more variation on Herbert's basic theme,
the necessity for communication, The Santaroga Barrier has
been praised by many college students who are overly aware
of the invidious consequences of the lack of understanding:
alienation, anomy, despair.
One of the principal charges laid against many science
fiction novels is that they are exasperating. Too often they
combine startling ingenuity with shabby characterization, or
complexities of plotting with inanities of style. Some 1968
novels are no exception. What makes them so exasperating
is the realization that they are, on the whole, so good that
there is no reason for their not being superior. What is even
more disappointing, the novels sometimes demonstrate an
unrealized potential. Editors groan when they get a manu-
script embodying an original concept, very badly handled.
The editors, to their credit, usually insist -~at a writer learn