Alexei Panshin's The Abyss of Wonder
I was standing in the backyard of the House of Tomorrow a few weeks after I graduated from high school when all of a sudden it became clear to me what I ought to be doing with the manual typewriter I'd just been given as a graduation present. A hand fell on my shoulder, as it were, and a voice whispered in my heart. The voice said, "Write."
Since I always heed voices like that, I set out to try. And within a year, straining against my limits, I produced something like an original science fiction novel. It was nowhere near good, but it was a starting point.Writing has been my way to wonder about things. I've written science fiction and fantasy. I've also written about the meaning of story and the nature of the imagination. All together, I've published eleven books, four of them with my wife Cory.
The following are available as ebooks from ElectricStory (click on thumbnail for a larger view):
I also have print copies of five of my books for sale:
HEINLEIN IN DIMENSION
This was my first book, originally published in SF fanzines in Canada, England and the United States. No one had ever written a full-length study of the stories of any SF writer before, and the World Science Fiction Convention voted me the initial Fan Writer Hugo Award for it. But Heinlein polarizes opinion, so even today on alt.fan.heinlein you will find both those who are ready to say that the book is a fairminded first word and those who declare me lower than wormshit for writing such awful things about the man and his work.(Heinlein in Dimension is also available online at this site. The writing of the book is recounted in The Story of Heinlein in Dimension.)
Advent hardcover:
$17
Advent quality paperback:
$10
RITE OF PASSAGE
A girl who lives on an immense interstellar ship must manage to survive Trial for a month in the wilds of a colony planet. John Brunner described the story as, "An impressive portrayal of the psychological and moral coming-of-age of a young girl whose upbringing and background are truly of the future yet whose problems are universal." The Science Fiction Writers of America gave Rite of Passage a Nebula Award as Best Novel of the Year.(The writing of this book is recounted in Rite of Passage and Robert Heinlein.)
Leatherbound hardcover (Easton Press edition) : $50
SF IN DIMENSION
Twenty-two essays are gathered here, including second and third thoughts about Robert Heinlein's stories. These reconsiderations, reviews and speculations by Cory and me show the development of a new view of the nature of SF. Ian Watson said, "The strong suit of this book is its urgent, but never dumbly optimistic, sense of what might be possible, what imaginative span SF might be able to encompass in the future."
Advent quality
paperback: $12
TRANSMUTATIONS. A BOOK OF
PERSONAL ALCHEMY
This collection of all my most lefthanded pieces of writing was my belated way of addressing a friend who didn't manage to survive the minefield of life in the late Twentieth Century. Like an elephant in the dark, it's more than just a bunch of parts. You might think of its nature as something like this site.
Elephant Books
hardcover: $25
Elephant Books quality
paperback: $12
This is Cory's and my account of the first appearances in fiction of the transcendent images of SF--from a creature brought to life by electricity to human galactic empire. Winner of a Hugo Award in competition with books by Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, Robert A. Heinlein and Ursula K. LeGuin at the World Science Fiction Convention in The Hague. Isaac Asimov called it, "The best, the best, history of science fiction I have ever read." And Northrop Frye said, "I learned a great deal from reading The World Beyond the Hill."(A chapter of this book concerning the early stories of A.E. van Vogt is available online at this site.)
Elephant Books
numbered 1st edition: $50
Tarcher quality paperback:
$17
order from--Alexei Panshin
$2.50 postage & handling 1st book, $1 ea add.
