The Embedding

Easton Press, 1992. Hardcover. Near Fine. Pat Morrissey. Near Fine condition (scratch on side text edge gilt) Easton leather bound copy (no dust jacket as issued) with all of the trimmings. Part of the publisher's Masterpieces of Science Fiction series. Collector's Notes laid in. Introduction by Pamela Sargent. "His first novel, The Embedding (1973), although it is not necessarily his finest work, remains his most respected single title, a work which very early confirmed his stature as an sf writer of powerful intellect, one of the most demanding authors of the Scientific Romance, though the sometimes erratic quicksilver shiftiness of his tales perhaps makes him less fully representative of that self-consciously serious-minded tradition than his near-contemporary Brian Stableford. Through a complex tripartite plot, the book engages in a searching analysis (see Communications; Linguistics; Perception) of the nature of communication through language; the Whorfian hypothesis that languages comprehensively shape our perception of reality - a hypothesis very attractive, for obvious reasons, to sf writers, though now discredited- is bracingly embodied in at least two of the subplots: one describing a cruel experiment in which children are taught only an artificial language; the other showing attempts on the part of visiting Aliens to understand Homo sapiens through an analysis of our modes of communication." - [JC/PN] - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3rd Edition/Internet. Nice, uncommonly signed by Watson edition!