The Mind Pool

Начало книги

The Mind Pool, the volume you are now holding in your hand, was originally a somewhat different and rather shorter book, The Nimrod Hunt.

Writing a book is hard work. Writing a book twice, the same book, sounds like masochism. I want to explain why I did it.

Before The Nimrod Hunt was published, I knew three things. First, the book was the longest and most complex science fiction novel that I had ever written. Second, because of my own worries over that length and complexity, I omitted a substantial subplot that I was very fond of, but which was not an absolute essential. That did allow the book to be a good deal shorter, although at the cost of an ending different from the one that I had originally intended. (I have put that subplot back in. It first enters in Chapter Three. Although the beginning of The Mind Pool is like the start of The Nimrod Hunt, the ending is radically different.)

Third, and less obviously relevant, in writing The Nimrod Hunt I had been greatly influenced by a classic novel by Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination. I’ve loved that book since I first read it. I had no thought of imitating Bester’s style, which although marvelous is uniquely his and quite unlike my way of telling stories. But I wanted to emulate the multitude of ideas, the diverse backgrounds, and the blowzy rococo decadence of his future society. I also wanted to put in a good deal more science, an interstellar landscape, and some rather odd aliens. That told me I was going to write a pretty long novel.

Читать дальше →