This may be the best science fiction story I have ever read, nudging Egan’s Wang’s Carpets out of first place. By best, I mean a high concentration of sparkly ideas, and in the case of the Card story, reasons to be fond of the human race—and there’s a metalevel, because a lot of the story is about the good we get from having mental models of each other, and the story is Card trying to channel Asimov.
It has none of the character torture which makes a lot of Card’s fiction squicky to me.
I read it in Maps in a Mirror, and I can’t vouch that the online version is complete or correct. On the other hand, I want to improve the odds of the story getting read.
If you’re a Card fan, you may want to get the hardcover edition—it’s got some stories which are mentioned as not being included in the paperback edition.
The Originist by Orson Scott Card.
This may be the best science fiction story I have ever read, nudging Egan’s Wang’s Carpets out of first place. By best, I mean a high concentration of sparkly ideas, and in the case of the Card story, reasons to be fond of the human race—and there’s a metalevel, because a lot of the story is about the good we get from having mental models of each other, and the story is Card trying to channel Asimov.
It has none of the character torture which makes a lot of Card’s fiction squicky to me.
I read it in Maps in a Mirror, and I can’t vouch that the online version is complete or correct. On the other hand, I want to improve the odds of the story getting read.
If you’re a Card fan, you may want to get the hardcover edition—it’s got some stories which are mentioned as not being included in the paperback edition.