"Rog Phillips - Rat in the Skull" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

Introduction


Rat in the Skull
Love Me, Love My тАУ
Executioner No. 43
Unto the Nth Generation
The Holes in My Head
Pariah




INTRODUCTION

The editors of the December 1958 issue of the science fiction magazineIf introduced
veteran science fiction writer Rog Phillips' novelette "Rat in the Skull" this way:
"Some people will be shocked by this story. Others will be deeply moved. Everyone
who reads it will be talking about it. Read the first four pages: then put it down if you
can." They were warning readers to beware of something "different" from a writer
known for his off-trail approach to science fiction.
Though the blurb might have seemed hyperbole to readers before perusing Phillips'
tale, it didn't seem so afterward тАУ for six months later they had nominated it for the
prestigious Science Fiction Achievement Award (or "Hugo," named for pioneering
1920s editor-publisher Hugo Gernsback) for best story of the year. Alas it lost out
to an equally exceptional story, Avram Davidson's "Or All the Sea with Oysters,"
from a magazine with twice the circulation ofIf .
Sadly, "Rat in the Skull" was forgotten with Phillip's death, and it, along with the rest
of his considerable body of work, fell into undeserved obscurity. As a result, this
electronic edition ofRat in the Skull and Other Off-Trail Science Fiction is the
first-ever collection of Rog Phillips work. As science fiction historian Forrest J.
Ackerman says, "Science fiction readers who have never been exposed to Roger
Phillips Graham's inimitable brand of prose are in for a real treat."
Rat in the Skullrounds up some of the best and strangest of that work, including the
title story, unavailable for nearly fifty years, plus his most celebrated science fiction,
"The Yellow Pill," whichThe Encyclopedia of Science Fictionhails as "an ingenious
exercise in the paradox of perception," plus such other thought-provoking, off-trail
works as the disquieting "The Holes in My Head," "Unto the Nth Generation," which
manages to be both chilling and touching, the unforgettable "Pariah," "Love Me,
Love MyтАУ" a delightful spaceways romp, and the hard-boiled "Executioner No. 43."
Here is how the modest author described himself in a brief biography for William
Hamling's lamented 1950s science fiction pulp magazineImagination :


"My usual expression is one of extreme despondency, and it gives me trouble. In
cafes where I sometimes go to think up stories, the waitresses think I'm
contemplating suicide. When I explain I'm thinking up a new story, I can't go back
there to think again. Sometimes even my wife thinks my thoughtful expression means
I'm mad at her.