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Overview
The Man Who Melted is a warning for the future. It is the Brave New World and 1984 for our time, for it gives us a glimpse into our own future — a future ruled by corporations that control deadly and powerful forms of mass manipulation. It is a prediction of what could happen...tomorrow. The Man Who Melted examines how technology affects us and changes our morality, and it questions how we might remain human in an inhuman world. Will the future disenfranchise or empower the individual? Here you'll find new forms of sexuality, new perversions, new epiphanies, and an entirely new form of consciousness.
Would you pay to "go down" with the Titanic?
In this dystopia the Titanic is brought back from the bottom of the sea and refurbished, only to be sunk again for those who want the ultimate decadent experience. Some passengers pay to commit suicide by "going under" with the ship.
The Man Who Melted has been called "one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time" by Science Fiction Age and is considered a genre classic. It is the stunning odyssey of a man searching through the glittering, apocalyptic landscape of the next century for a woman lost to him in a worldwide outbreak of telepathic fear. Here is a terrifying future where people can gamble away their hearts (and other organs) and telepathically taste the last flickering thoughts of the dead.
Synopsis
Introduction by Robert Silverberg
The Man Who Melted is a warning for the future. It is the Brave New World and 1984 for our time, for it gives us a glimpse into our own future-a future ruled by corporations that control deadly and powerful forms of mass manipulation. It is a prediction of what could happen. . . tomorrow.
The Man Who Melted examines how technology affects us and changes our morality, and it questions how we might remain human in an inhuman world. Will the future disenfranchise or empower the individual? Here you'll find new forms of sexuality, new perversions, new epiphanies, and an entirely new form of consciousness.
Would you pay to "go down" with the Titanic?
In this dystopia the Titanic is brought back from the bottom of the sea and refurbished, only to be sunk again for those who want the ultimate decadent experience. Some passengers pay to commit suicide by "going under" with the ship.
The Man Who Melted has been called "one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time" by Science Fiction Age and is considered a genre classic. It is the stunning odyssey of a man searching through the glittering, apocalyptic landscape of the next century for a woman lost to him in a worldwide outbreak of telepathic fear. Here is a terrifying future where people can gamble away their hearts (and other organs) and telepathically taste the last flickering thoughts of the dead.
Publishers Weekly
The reissue of Jack Dann's classic future-history novel, The Man Who Melted (1984), includes a new introduction by Robert Silverberg, who praises Dann for predicting such things as the Internet. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewJack Dann's Nebula Awardnominated The Man Who Melted (1984) is one of the genre's most underappreciated classics. Written as four interconnected short stories between 1981 and 1983, Dann's haunting vision of a dystopic 22nd-century Earth is appropriately described by Robert Silverberg in the novel's introduction as "a book like no other science fiction novel…the future as nightmare, science fiction as poetic vision."
Equal parts social commentary, apocalyptic thriller, and dark prophecy, the novel stars Raymond Mantle, a psychologically shattered man obsessed with finding his wife (and sister) Josiane, who disappeared during the Great Scream -- a large-scale outbreak of shared insanity that swept the Earth and turned millions into raging, murdering disciples of the collective conscious. Suffering from amnesia when it comes to memories of his wife, Mantle will do anything to find her -- even if it means telepathically plugging into a dying Screamer's memories. But after traveling a world gone insane in search of clues to her whereabouts, what Mantle finds at journey's end just may be enough to trigger another -- and final -- Great Scream…
Since its launch in 2005, the editorial brain trust at Pyr has (among other accomplishments) reissued numerous largely overlooked genre masterworks and breathed new life into them with innovative new cover art, updated introductions, etc. Longtime science fiction fans who enjoy rediscovering truly visionary classics like Dann's The Man Who Melted should also check out Pyr reissues of George Zebrowski's Macrolife and Robert Silverberg's Star of Gypsies. All three novels more than adequately support the curmudgeonly claim that they just don't write 'em like they used to… Paul Goat Allen