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Going for Infinity

Name: Going for Infinity
Author: Poul Anderson
ISBN: 9781429970341

by Poul Anderson

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Overview

More than just a collection of some of Poul Anderson's most acclaimed works, Going for Infinity is both a celebration and a memoir of Anderson's distinguished sixty-year career in science fiction and fantasy. Along with several Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories, Anderson also shares autobiographical musings, and fond memories as he looks back at a lifetime spent crafting many of science fiction's most memorable adventures.

Between the short story and novel excerpts collected here, which range over the entire length of Anderson's career, he reminisces about his experiences, including his encounters with such peers and colleagues as John W. Campbell, Anthony Boucher, "Gordy" Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford Simak, and Harlan Ellison.

Going for Infinity provides a firsthand look at six decades of science fiction and fantasy, as lived by one of the field's most honored contributors. From the moons of Saturn to the shores of an enchanted isle, the astounding breadth of Poul Anderson's imagination is on ample display throughout this once-in-a-lifetime collection, along with a personal glimpse into the man himself.

At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

About the Author, Poul Anderson

The bestselling author of such classic novels as Brain Wave and The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson won just about every award the science fiction and fantasy field has to offer. He has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas, the John W. Campbell Award, The Locus Poll Award, the Skylark Award, and the SFWA Grandmaster Award for Lifetime Achievement. His recent books include Harvest of Stars, The Stars are also On Fire, Operation Chaos, Operation Luna, Genesis, Mother of Kings, and Going for Infinity, a collection and retrospective of his life's work. Poul Anderson lived in Orinda, California where he passed away in 2001.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

This posthumous retrospective anthology serves as a valentine to SFWA Grandmaster Anderson's legions of fans, and includes hard SF, first-contact stories, fantasy, detective fiction and sword and sorcery, sometimes melded together in surprising ways. Some tales (e.g., Sam Hall ) show their age but well reflect the writing popular at the time, while others, particularly those that play with fantasy elements (e.g., The Saturn Game ), underscore Anderson's tendency toward densely written, emotive prose, with a dollop of soul-satisfying melodrama. Among samples from his many series are The Master Key, a Nicholas van Rijn story from his Technic History series, and The Problem of Pain, one of his tales of the Poleosotechnic League. Both highlight the great divide between human and alien, but of chief interest is not the misunderstanding between the two but rather the human response to loss. The bittersweet Death and the Knight, part of the Time Patrol sequence, repeats a familiar Time Patrol plot (time traveler gone missing must be rescued), but with a twist. Classic must-read stories include Goat Song and The Queen of Air and Darkness, both of which foreground faerie. And Quest, in the sword-and-sorcery-meets-high-tech world of The High Crusade, posits an outer-space quest for the Holy Grail. Anderson provides brief headnotes for each story, full of anecdotes about fellow SF luminaries. This anthology represents the life's work of one of SF's most enduring and versatile writers. (June 20) FYI: Anderson died July 31, 2001, at home in Orinda, Calif. In a writing career that spanned more than 50 years, he won three Nebula and seven Hugo awards. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.