The Wall Around The World, Theodore R. Cogswell 1974 Paperback Book

Description: Very good condition. ----------- 2 ----------- THEODORE A.COGSWELL THE WALL AROUND THE WORLD From spaceships to flying broomsticks-ten classic stories of science fiction and fantasy with a double introduction by FREDERIK POHL and ANTHONY BOUCHER ----------- 2 ----------- TWO-SIDED TEACHER THEODORE J. COGSWELL is a respectable teach- er of English at an Indiana college. Yet at times a strange change comes over him-fangs protrude from his mouth, an expression of bestial cunning shadows his face, and claws sprout from his fingers and proceed to rattle on the typewriter. The result is a series of stories, both supernatural and scien- tific, which have received the raves of discriminat- ing readers. THE WALL AROUND THE WORLD is the first collec- tion of these stories in book form-eight stories and two novelettes, including the famous title story and the well-remembered "The Specter General." ----------- 4 ----------- CONTENTS Introduction: Fantasy and/or Science Fiction: Anthony Boucher Fantasy in Science Fiction-No: Frederik Pohl The Masters The Specter General Wolfie Emergency Rations The Burning Thimgs Test Area Prisoner Love Invasion Report The Wall Around the World ----------- 5 ----------- INTRODUCTION FANTASY AND/OR SCIENCE FICTION LABELS ARE DANGEROUS THINGS. The same label that seems to one reader to spell out an alluring taste me will appear to another as the skull-and- crossbones warning of poison. "Science fiction" is a particularly ambivalent label. There is a small group of enthusiasts who read it eagerly and have little desire to read anything else; and there is a large group of general readers who absolutely refuse to touch the stuff. Neither group has any clear concept of what science fiction is; they simply know it as a label for what they, respectively, will/will not read. So s.f. editors apply the label to a broad range of fantasy, which s.f. readers accept happily. And mainstream publishers and readers withdraw the label from certain selected works, saying "This is not science fiction"-which is mainstreamese for "This is science fiction but I think you'll like it." There was a time when the term "science fiction" had critical validity and importance, denoting a particular branch of imaginative literature characterized by rigorous intellec- tual disciplines. These are most recognizable in what we may call hard-core science fiction-all of the work of Hal Clement, for instance, and much of Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke-fiction of closely reasoned speculation, in which the story could not exist without the thinking back of it. But what is labeled "s.f." today ranges over a whole spectrum, from this hard-core stuff through recognizably close relations and on to pure fantasy-with-the-words-changed or worse yet, to wholly unimaginative fiction which is simply a conventional western or thriller set on Mars. That admirable craftsman Fredric Brown once explained (somewhat cynically, I fear) how "almost any fantasy can 7 ----------- 5 ----------- THE WALL AROUND THE WORLD was too high for anyone to get over-until Porgie gimmicked his broomstick... THE MASTERS couldn't figure out why the last man on Earth liked to sleep in a coffin . . INVASION REPORT!-and the only force between Earth and the Invaders was a bunch of kids playing spaceman ... THE SPECTER GENERAL hadn't been around for centuries-but he wasn't forgotten In two novelettes and eight short stories, Ted Cogswell explores some possible, probable, and highly unlikely worlds-worlds of the future that may be, and worlds that just couldn't be-or could they...? A PYRAMID BOOK 95¢ Printed in the U.S.A.

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