The Flying Sorcerers
This sparkling sequel to WIZARDS OF ODD once again turns logic on its head, with a galaxy of star writers and stories. Terry Pratchett, the arch-priest of the genre, leads off with the eccentric figure of DEATH, on new and curious mission, Roald Dahl plays havoc with country superstition, and Arthur C. Clarke shows the funny side of cosmic doom. Add to these dazzling contributions from masters such as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Angela Carter, C.S. Lewis, P.G. Wodehouse and Michael Moorcock, and you have a blend of comic fantasy, supernatural extravaganza and sf, that is almost literally in orbit. The title of the book stems from the fact that many of the stories feature characters who can fly - either under their own power or by machines - or they simply run into trouble with aerial objects of one sort or another. Bringing together some of the best fantasy available, THE FLYING SORCERERS is a gloriously bizarre, wonderfully varied collection of stories.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
2mentions
2people
2014–2019years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Also wrote The Flying Sorcerers with Larry Niven, relevant to the top comment, being about kickstarting an alien industrial revolution.
- Niven used a similar idea for the Library on the Pak Protector homeworld (Protector) for persisting knowledge through constant warfare.
And with David Gerrold (who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles Star Trek episode), The Flying Sorcerers, with "pull up" lines: needing to make the things to make the other things. (Niven's Ringworld also has a problem with restarting civilization: no ore beneath the surface - though, why not use rusted cars etc?) Games like Civilization arguably also use this idea, with their tree/graph of technologies. A Fire Upon the Deep (FUP, Vinge) does a little of this, also talks of restoring technology in the Slownness as a hobby of Uni Depts.
It's always reminded me of people in the Renaissance wondering in awe at ancient greek civilization (and even today, we use many of their ideas, particularly civic/municipal/government - arguably, a kind of "technology", a way of organizing people).
FUP also notes there are some very simple mechanisms that aren't discovered until technology has progressed well beyond what was needed (because the principle needed to understand them was very advanced). IIRC the example was a torsional quantum antennae (with I assume is related to a waveguide antennae).
Dragon's Egg (Forward) has the fascinating idea that it's more important to let people know that something is possible, than to explicitly show them how. Because then they understand it fully for themselves.
I think also, it has far superior effect-per-information: as another commenter said, you can't really fit all of modern technology into one book.
