Title: Faster Than Light
Author: Various
Publisher: Harper & Row
ISBN: : 0060109521
Format: Hard Cover/Dust Jacket
Publication Year: 1976
Pages: 321
Special Attributes: First Edition (stated), Illustrated, Jack Dann, George Zebrowski, editors
Used Condition: tight binding, clean text, no marks, not price clipped, not ex-library, jacket protected in new archival Brodart cover
Description from dust jacket:
Faster-than-light travel would be an event in human history comparable to the harnessing of fire and the invention of the wheel. Imagine: unrestricted and virtually instantaneous access to the entire universe. And yet, over the years few science fiction writers have taken this remarkable idea seriously. Now, for the first time, some of the finest writers in the field have turned their attentions and their imaginations to the fascinating possibilities of faster-than-light travel.
Starting and closing the collection are nonfiction essays, which give a sound understanding of the technological advances connected with interstellar travel, by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Keith Laumer, Ben Bova, and Poul Anderson. The stories themselves deal with the steps leading to and the reality of star travel, and the consequences for human life.
What will the form of our star-drives be? What will power them? What will we find when we examine black holes, quasars, supernovae? What of the people who go to the stars -- will they be dreamers, idealists, exploiters? These are some of the ideas found in the stories by Howard Waldrop and A. A. Jackson IV, Poul Anderson, Hall Clement, Harlan Ellison (with the complete original screenplay of the first episode of The Starlost), Ian Watson, George R. R. Martin, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Gregory Benford, and Dick Allen. There are also notes on the authors and editors and a selected bibliography.
