What is the most human thing a human being can do?

The question of what it means to be human lies at the heart of these stories of inner and outer adventures of the human spirit. In "Shanidar," a restless, overly civilized man tires of the oppressive existence of the trillions of citizens of the Civilized Worlds spread across the stars. Goshevan seeks a different way of living, a way to be new. His quest takes him to the world of Icefall, home to the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame (and also the topological nexus of the galaxy). In the city of Neverness, whose streets are colored ice, he finds cutter who carks his body into the shape of the Neanderthal-like Alaloi who have long ago peopled the frozen islands west of Neverness. For the Alaloi, like Goshevan, have their own dreams of how human beings should live in a deadly and incomprehensible universe.

In "The Dreamer’s Sleep," some of the same Elidi birdmen who dwell in Neverness have been enslaved and made to work in a mine. They, too, are dreamers; in fact, without the dreams of the one who tells them stories of flying free across open, blue skies, they cannot survive. In "Caverns," survival is not the problem, but the scientist Richard Stone faces the cruelest of decisions: should he remain human for the sake of the woman he loves or should he become something incomprehensibly more? "When The Rose Is Dead" puts the survivors of war in the Endless City through the hell of memory and forgetting – and explores the possibilities of overcoming death through remembering those we love.

Shanidar and Other Stories opens the gateway to Neverness, the internationally bestselling novel that introduces the epic A Requiem For Homo Sapiens trilogy. If you enjoy big-idea science fiction that explores the possibilities of radical transformation, transcendence, and explorations of consciousness, memory, and evolution – all wrapped up in page-turning stories – you’ll love this book. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Shanidar and Other Stories (David Zindell)