George Zebrowski’s Macrolife
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Macrolife
Islands in Space: An Appreciation of Dandridge M. Cole
George Zebrowski alterted me to this article by Alex Michael Bonnici, “Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids, the Pioneering Work of Dandridge M. Cole,” an appreciate of the American aerospace engineer and
futurist, posted on The Discovery Enterprise. As the article attests, Cole’s contribution to space exploration has been tremendous. His book, Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids, co-authored with Donald Cox, laid the foundation for our eventual exploration of the asteroid belts. He was one of the first scientists to draw the broad outlines of what a mission to the asteroids might entail, and, in Exploring the Secrets of Space: Astronautics for the Layman with I. M. Levitt, Cole first proposed the notion of hollowing out an asteroid, spinning it to provide a simulation of gravity, and populating it as a permanent space colony. This idea – which predates that of Gerard K. O’Neill by over a decade – had been incredibly influential on both the real world of space exploration and on science fiction itself. Can anyone say Babylon 5 ? Cole is also paid direct tribute in George Zebrowski’s 
classic, Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia,
“Taking man as representative of multicelled life, we can say that man is the mean proportional between Macro-Life and the cell. Macro-Life is a new life form of gigantic size which has for its cells individual human beings, plants, animals, and machines . . . Society can be said to pregnant with a mutant creature which will be at the same time an extraterrestrial colony of human beings and a new large-scale life form.”
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B&N on Melty Men
The Barnes and Noble review of The Man Who Melted, courtesy of Paul Goat Allen:
“Jack Dann’s Nebula Award–nominated 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… “
Mike Resnick Interview & Concatenation Reviews
Mike Resnick is interviewed by John Joseph Adams over on Sci Fi Wire. They talk about the Starship series – Mutiny,
Meanwhile, a handful of new Pyr reviews popped up on the Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation site.
Susan Griffiths says of Chris Roberson’s Paragaea: A Planetary Romance:
“I found the storytelling effective enough to conjure up images in my mind as well as inspiring interest in the characters and the world they inhabit. I found it a shame to get to the end of the book as I could have gladly read more – and it was perfect to lose myself in as I sat on a train that was delayed for several hours to the point when I lost track of time. So, on that note, I would recommend it as an enjoyable, well written and an engaging fantasy adventure with a consistently developing story.”
Whereas Tony Chester really likes George Zebrowski’s Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia:
“…an SF classic and a book which contains all the sense of wonder that truly good SF could wish for… Bearing in mind that this is an old novel and, therefore, one which was heavily influenced by the science of its day, it has to be said that it has held up remarkably well over time and does not seem implausible even now, even given current cosmology… Macrolife ticks all the right boxes, and it is probably its very unfussiness that has contributed to its longevity. …good is good and quality tells, and I’m damn sure there’s many a current writer of SF who would give their right arms to write a book that will survive as long as this one. Needless to say, recommended to all.”
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Three More Pyr Reviews
A review by David Hebblethwaite over on SFSite.com for George Zebrowski’s Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia. David writes:
“Macrolife is a novel with ideas at the fore. … There’s a welcome complexity to the issues examined. For instance, technology is not characterized as something wholly good or bad; but, more accurately, as a potential source of both problems and solutions, depending on how it is used… Zebrowski does not shy away from looking at the downside to macrolife; and there is much debate on the rights and wrongs of interfering with planetary civilizations, with no easy answers… The Library Journal quote on the cover says that Macrolife is ‘one of the 100 best science fiction novels of all-time.’ Whilst I’m not knowledgeable enough to be the judge of that, I am sure that the book is no less relevant now than it was in 1979. Whether macrolife as depicted here will be part of humanity’s future, it is good that we should think about it — and it is good that we have such an eloquent and spirited expression of the idea as Zebrowski’s novel.”
And a review on Lesley on the Eternal Night for Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda compares the fictional city of the title with the reviewer’s actual experience of India:
“Having been fortunate enough to visit a number of cities across India I did wonder how the city and population of Sagramanda would compare to the real people and places I have experienced. I was pleasantly surprised. As I read I could almost smell the air of Delhi or Kohlapur and feel the heat of the sun. What did impress me was the way the author introduced subtle touches of technology into the India of tomorrow; just enough to let you know you are in the near future without destroying the overall sensation of being in the Indian subcontinent.”
Finally, Cheryl Morgan can’t resist reading Justina Robson’s Keeping it Real in time for the lamentably-final issue of the great site Emerald City:
“Black leather, motorbikes, elf rock stars who actually know what an electric guitar is for, a small nuclear reactor, and some big guns. And, because this is Justina Robson we are talking about, a heroine with a great deal of self-doubt who is just as likely to let go with the tears as with an Uzi… Yes, Keeping It Real is a thrill-a-minute adventure yarn full of sex and elves and motorbikes. But it is also a book in which dragons are well versed in quantum mechanics.”
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