Imagine an illness that brings discomfort and weakness. But not death. Almost never death. And then after making a full recovery, the patient is granted weeks of clarity, of happiness, wisdom and titanic energy.
Now imagine a world that needs clarity and happiness and wisdom.
Wouldn't that be worth a little misery?
"Bernard was the silent fellow sitting alone in the last row on the Pan-Am flight to Caracas, and he was the nondescript gringo surrounded by his important boxes and packing crates and one small suitcase, riding the bus south on a muddy road barely two years old, and he was the pale sweaty apparition with dirty glasses and the five-day beard, boyish hands clinging to the gunwales of a leaky canoe. The canoe's pilot was a glowering local hired for a few US dollars on the promise that he knew the country and its waters and could deliver his client to the proper watershed and return promptly in five weeks to retrieve him. Bernard was a biologist. More specifically, he was fascinated with parasites and their hosts, and despite appearances he was not weak or tentative or especially inept. Indeed, the man had flown thousands of miles to visit a place beyond the reach of any accurate map. More conventional adventurers would chase gold or oil, but Bernard's treasure was new species of roundworms."
Robert Reed is the author of nearly 300 published stories. Best known for his Great Ship saga, Reed won the Hugo Award in 2007, for his novella "A Billion Eves."
Genre: Science Fiction
Now imagine a world that needs clarity and happiness and wisdom.
Wouldn't that be worth a little misery?
"Bernard was the silent fellow sitting alone in the last row on the Pan-Am flight to Caracas, and he was the nondescript gringo surrounded by his important boxes and packing crates and one small suitcase, riding the bus south on a muddy road barely two years old, and he was the pale sweaty apparition with dirty glasses and the five-day beard, boyish hands clinging to the gunwales of a leaky canoe. The canoe's pilot was a glowering local hired for a few US dollars on the promise that he knew the country and its waters and could deliver his client to the proper watershed and return promptly in five weeks to retrieve him. Bernard was a biologist. More specifically, he was fascinated with parasites and their hosts, and despite appearances he was not weak or tentative or especially inept. Indeed, the man had flown thousands of miles to visit a place beyond the reach of any accurate map. More conventional adventurers would chase gold or oil, but Bernard's treasure was new species of roundworms."
Robert Reed is the author of nearly 300 published stories. Best known for his Great Ship saga, Reed won the Hugo Award in 2007, for his novella "A Billion Eves."
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Robert Reed's Euphoria