Edgar Pangborn studied music at  Harvard when just 15 years old, eventually turned his  back on music to focus on his writing. He flourished in the early '50s, producing a string of highly-regarded  stories for the likes of Galaxy, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science  Fiction and Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine.  His work helped establish a  new 'humanist' school of science fiction, and has been cited as an influence by Ursula Le Guin. This omnibus contains the Hugo-shortlisted Davy, International Fantasy Award-winner A Mirror for Observers and story collection Good Neighbours and Other Strangers.
DAVY: A HUGO and NEBULA AWARD nominee, this post-apocalyptic science fiction novel is Pangborn's most acclaimed. It is set in the Northeastern United States some centuries after an atomic war ended high-technology civilization. Davy comes of age in a pseudo-medieval society dominated by a Church that actively suppresses technology. 
A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS: The Martians, long exiled from their home planet, have for millennia been observers of the world of men. Forbidden by their laws to interfere with human destiny, they wait for mankind to mature. From the turmoil of mid 20th-century America, word comes to the Observers that one their renegades is hoping to encourage humanity in its headlong rush to self-destruction through the corruption of a single rare intellect. The struggle between Observer and Abdicator for the continuance of the human species is one of the classic conflicts in the annals of science fiction. 
GOOD NEIGHBORS AND OTHER STRANGERS: A collection of short stories reflecting Pangborn's fresh writing style and mastery of the short form.

Edgar Pangborn SF Gateway Omnibus

Davy is set in the far future of our world, in the fourth century after the collapse of what we describe as the twentieth-century civilisation.  In a land turned upside-down and backwards by the results of scientific unwisdom, Davy and his fellow Ramblers are carefree outcasts, whose bawdy, joyous adventures among the dead ashes of Old-Time culture make a novel which has been hailed as "a frightening, ribald, poignant look at the imaginary future," as "this chilling and fascinating book," as "superb entertainment - unique," as "so unusual as the make it both refreshing and thought provoking."

Davy

Eve: she was the true descendant of the first Woman - still craving the knowledge of life in the new world after the holocaust. Claudius: Only he remembered the world before the One-Day War. Would this memory help him find the truth? Ethan: He had the heart of a lion. But to conquer Eve he needed the heart of a man. Kenneth: He had confronted both the lady and the tiger. Now he would have to face the judgment of Eve.

The Judgement of Eve

Il est connu (à certains) qu'en habitant le présent, concédant ce qui est nécessaire au passé et à l'avenir, mais pas plus que nécessaire, il est tout à fait possible de vivre heureux pour toujours

Souhaiter l'impossible à l'avenir est un bon exercice, je pense, en particulier pour les enfants; Le souhait dans le passé est sûrement les professions les plus vides et les plus tristes.

Et pourtant je persiste à me demander si la folie doit toujours être notre ennemi juré.

Ses oeuvres

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