Williamsburg Regional Library

Moderan, David R. Bunch ; foreword by Jeff VanderMeer

eng

no index present

fiction

Moderan

1012659535

David R. Bunch ; foreword by Jeff VanderMeer

New York Review Books Classics

"Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with "arsenals of fear," earth is covered with vast sheets of plastic, and humans vie to replace more and more of their own "soft parts" with steel machinery. What need is there for nature when trees and flowers can be pushed up through holes in the plastic? Who requires human companionship when new-metal mistresses can be ordered from the shop? But even a Stronghold master can doubt the catechism of Moderan. Wanderers, poets, and his own children pay visits, proving that another world is possible. "The effect is as if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated," Brian Aldiss wrote of David R. Bunch's stories. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and '70s and passionately sought by collectors, the stories have not been available in a single volume for nearly fifty years. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, and borrowing from the Bible and the language of advertising, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. His intent was not to divert readers from the horrors of modernity but to make them face it squarely"--, Provided by publisher

Part One: the beginnings., Thnking back (Our God is a helping God!), No cracks of sagging, The, butterflies were eagle-big that day, New kings are not for laughing, One time, a red carpet, Battle won, Head thumping the troops, New-metal mistress time, And so White Witch Valley, The, bird man of Moderan, Bubble-done homes, One false step, Survival packages, New-metal, Of hammers and men, The, straonghold, 2064, or thereabouts, Penance day in Moderan, Strange shapde in the stronghold, Getting regular, The, walking, talking I-don't-care-man., Part Two: Everyday life in Moderan., To face eternity, In the innermost room of authority, The, problem, Playmate, A, husband's share, The, complete father, Was she horrid?, A, glance at the past, Educational, It was in black cat weather, Sometimes I get so happy, Remembering, A, little girl's Xmas in Moderan, The, flesh-man from Far Wide, PartThree: Intimations of the end., The, one from Camelot Moderan, Reunion, The, warning, Has anyone seen this horseman?, Interrupion in Carnage, The, miracle of the flowers, Incident in Moderan, The, final decision, Will-Hung and waiting, How they took care of soul in a last day for a non-beginning, How it ended, Part four: Apocrypha from after the end., A, little at all times, The, joke, Two suns for the king, The, good war, In the land that aimed at forever, Among the metal-and-people people, The, dirty war, When the metal eaters came, a, little girl's spring day in Moderan, December for stronghold, The, heartacher and the warehouseman

adult