The Great Escape

by Ian Watson

Overview

Predictably unpredictable, normally abnormal.

Watson combines science fiction and fantasy into an eclectic mix that includes stories about fallen angels in Hell rebelling and mounting a breakout, about the inconvenience of keeping aging parents in your brain instead of a nursing home, about Jesus' immortal brother as solo passenger on the first starship, about alien coffins bombarding the solar system, about right-wing U.S. militias stealing a quantum computer to commit nuclear blackmail, about a computer games designer haunted by the cyber-ghost of his murdered wife, about frozen heads and strange mind-changes, and how a cake decorator defeats a vampire with a sweet tooth. De-evolution, treasure-hunting via hang glider, dark animal fantasies, humanity as hive-entity, Hercules Poirot on a starship - Watson takes the strange, the eerie the weird, mixes his seasoned writing skills, and produces a potpourri of the fantastic. These nineteen stories are sure to amuse, bemuse and entertain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780575114821
Publisher:	Orion
Publication date:	09/29/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	463 KB

About the Author

Ian Watson was born in 1943. He lectured in Tanzania and Tokyo and taught Future Studies at Birmingham Polytechnic. He began publishing SF with ¿Roof Garden Under Saturn¿ for New Worlds in 1969 but it was with the publication of The Embedding in 1973 that he really established himself as a writer of rare power and vision.
Ian Watson (1943 - )Ian Watson was born in England in 1943 and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a first class Honours degree in English Literature. He lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-1967) and Tokyo (1967-1970) before beginning to publish SF with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" for the influential New Worlds magazine in 1969. He became a full-time writer in 1976, following the success of his debut novel The Embedding. His work has been frequently shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula Awards and he has won the BSFA Award twice. From 1990 to 1991 he worked full-time with Stanley Kubrick on story development for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, directed after Kubrick's death by Steven Spielberg; for which he is acknowledged in the credits for Screen Story. Ian Watson lives in Spain.

Editorial Reviews

This collection of 19 stories by Hugo- and Nebula-finalist Watson showcases the author's knack for contemporary dark fantasy, often blended with an SF chaser. In "Caucus Winter" and "Three-Legged Dog," artificial intelligences take intriguing roles in rebellion and murder, respectively. Likewise in "Nanunculus," an intelligent program from the future "haunts" an unbalanced mathematician, attempting to keep him from committing suicide before he can finish the work necessary to the development of time travel. "When Thought-Mail Failed" reprises the fear and chaos of E.M. Forster's 1909 classic, "The Machine Stops." In two of the best stories here, the denizens of hell take matters into their own hands in "The Great Escape," while a famous fictional detective who suddenly appears on a starship in hyperspace cracks a tough case in "The Shape of Murder." A few stories disappoint by merely offering speculative ideas without fully exploring them, such as "A Day Without Dad," where the expense of nursing-home care forces adult children to "host" their parents inside their own brains. Likewise "Ahead!" and "Early, in the Evening" offer unconvincing futures created by unconventional technology run amok. In his introduction, Watson writes, "human consciousness is not the source of tales it is the product of tales," and therefore the telling of tales is "fundamental to our whole existence and to our knowledge of the world." That philosophy underlies this diverse and thoughtful volume, the first U.S. story collection for this British author. (May) FYI: Watson worked in 1990-1991 with Stanley Kubrick on story development for last summer's A.I.-Artificial Intelligence, for which he received screen credit for screen story. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A new collection from Watson (his first since The Coming of Vertumnus, 1994), comprising 19 typically eclectic pieces, 1995-99. In the title story, demons plan an assault on the deity by physically propelling hell toward Him! Equally striking, Hercule Poirot investigates a series of bizarre murders aboard a starship-but only for as long as the ship remains in hyperspace. A psychologist, part-nanomachine, part-software, delves into a troubled mathematician's brain. In a recasting of E.M. Forster's famous `The Machine Stops," a worldwide VR/e-mail system, rather than physical hardware, breaks down. And fantasy convention-goers battle an invasion of weasel-like beings. Elsewhere, the ideas continue to flow but the drama falters. Self-aware quantum computers figure in a sort of prototype of the novel Hard Questions (1997). An obsessed hang-glider pilot searches for the lost "Amber Room" of the Russian tsars. Likewise fixated, a couple blindly collects worthless china knickknacks. Jesus' twin brother heads for contact with aliens. Coffins, complete with mummified alien occupants, bombard the solar system. A murdered wife returns to haunt her computer games-designer husband. Old folks, rather than dying, have their personalities loaded into a relative's brain. Time itself regresses in cycles back toward the primordial slime. A cryogenically preserved head wakes in a surreal far future. Also, less satisfyingly: urban myths, autism, vampires, pre-Homeric gods, and magic boxes. Watson's ability to conjure up weird and terrifying situations blazes forth; more troublesome are the stories that collapse into pointless overelaboration, and characters that too often remain improbably passive.

Kirkus Reviews