• From the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, 1963
  
  
• From the novel Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement, 1953
  
  
• From the short story Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw, 1966
  
  
• From the novel Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick, 1969
  
  
• From the novel The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971
  
  
• From the novel Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick, 1985
  
  
• From the novella The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, 1972
  
  
• From the short story The Whisperer in Darkness by H.P. Lovecraft, 1939
  
  
• From the short story The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft, 1927
  
  
• From the short story The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft, 1928
  
  
• From the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, 1968
  
  
• From the novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, 1995
  
  
• From the novel Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, 1930
  
  
• From the novel A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, 1920
  
  
• From the short story The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard, 197?
  
  
• From the short story
  The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J.G. Ballard, 197?
  
  
• From the novel The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, 1956
  
  
• From the novel A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, 1968
  
  
• From the novel The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin , 1972
  
  

From the novel A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, 1968

   [This is the first tale of LeGuin's soaring Earthsea Trilogy, in which we follow the young Sparrowhawk from his humble origins and first tragic foolishness on the fisherman's isle of Gont through his training in the high arts of wizardry on Roke Island. Ged the sparrowhawk learns much and quickly, and before he has wisdom enough to stay his spells, he ungirds a Shadow of trouble upon the world, and more particularly, upon himself. The ensuing story of Ged's quest to first escape from his Shadow, and then to seek it and confront it, is as true a story as can be told. LeGuin's telling is knife-blade spare and focused unerringly on the elemental singularity at the heart of the struggle. More than perhaps any other modern fantasy writer, she knows how to spin English to her ends, and this is a riveting example of it. A Wizard of Earthsea is one of the most impressive works of "fantasy" I have ever read, and it has significantly informed my own efforts to... do and undo. - WA, 2 Feb 97]

He stood in the innermost room of the House of the Wise, and it was open to the sky. Then suddenly he was aware of a man clothed in white who watched him through the falling water of the fountain.
   As their eyes met, a bird sang aloud in the branches of the tree. In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves: it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight.

The Master Hand looked at the jewel that glittered on Ged's palm, bright as the prize of a dragon's hoard. The old Master murmured one word, "Tolk," and there lay the pebble, no jewel but a rough grey bit of rock. The Master took it and held it out on his own hand. "This is rock; tolk in the True Speech," he said, looking mildly up at Ged now. "A bit of the stone of which Roke Isle is made, a little bit of the dry land on which men live. It is itself. It is part of the world. By the Illusion-Change you can make it look like a diamond -- or a flower or a fly or an eye or a flame --" The rock flickered from shape to shape as he named them, and returned to rock. But that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholder's senses; it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing. To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world. It can be done. Indeed it can be done. It is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world, It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow..."

---

He [the Master Summoner] spoke softly and his eyes were somber as he looked at Ged. "You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do..."

---

"It is no secret [spoke Ged]. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power, no other name."

[2 Feb 97]    

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