The Black Corridor
The Black Corridor (German title: The Black Corridor ) is a first time in 1969. Ace Books ( USA published) science fiction -novel of the British writer Michael Moorcock , which on an unfinished story of the author Hilary Bailey based.
The theme of the novel is the decline of society and the profound personal and social isolation that results from it. It tells the story of a man who flees in a spaceship from an earth on which people's lives are increasingly determined by anarchy and war. The author uses the means of the usual narrative, entries in the ship's log, dream sequences and computer printouts in the style of the 60s.
Summary
Ryan, a relentless British businessman, feels repulsed by the decline of society at the end of the 20th century. He feels like one of the last sane people in a world ruled by paranoia .
With a small group of friends and relatives he steals a spaceship, the "Hope Dempsey", and sets off for Munich 15040 ( Barnard's Arrow Star ), where he hopes to find a planet suitable for colonization. He keeps watch alone while his 13 fellow travelers rest in chambers in which they are to spend the winter of the long journey. Every day he enters a report for each of the travelers, which always reads “Condition Steady” (“Everything normal”).
Ryan is haunted by nightmares and memories of the brutality of existence on earth; he is afraid of going mad. The ship's computer advises him to take a drug that will banish all fantasies and hallucinations ; but strangely enough, he hesitates to take the medicine.
author
Although the novel is attributed to Michael Moorcock, it is based on an idea for a story begun by Hilary Bailey, Moorcock's wife at the time, but never finished - "a straight future disaster story - collapse of society stuff". Moorcock took Bailey's Earth playing episodes and added all scenes set on the Hope Dempsey .
Typographic features
The novel uses typographical peculiarities through which, according to the author, "words form patterns of other letters that form other words". These elements were not always faithfully reproduced in all editions. The first US edition (Ace, 1969) reproduced them faithfully, but the first passages of the book were omitted here. These were found in the first British edition (Mayflower, 1969), but this did not correctly reflect the typographical features.
When anthologies of Moorcock's works were created in 1990, great emphasis was placed on correctly reproducing the typographical features in the volume containing The Black Corridor , Sailing to Utopia ; these volumes were described by Moorcock as "typographically correct".
Reactions
Barry Malzberg criticized the novel shortly after it was published and wrote: “It is not good. It is really not at all good. "
Karl Edward Wagner called The Black Corridor one of the thirteen best science fiction / horror novels of all time. Author China Miéville described the book as "an underrated and chilling piece of political pulp modernism."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Black Corridor. on multiverse.org.
- ^ M. Moorcock: multiverse.org ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), February 1, 2007.
- ↑ "Books," F&SF , May 1970, pp. 25-6 Quotation: "This is bad. Really bad."
- ^ NG Christakos: Three By Thirteen: The Karl Edward Wagner Lists. In: Black Prometheus: A Critical Study of Karl Edward Wagner.
- ↑ Brave New Worlds: A Michael Moorcock Retrospective. on thequietus.com quote: "An undervalued work of political trash modernism."