The Hampdenshire Wonder

In this pioneering science-fictional treatment of superhuman intelligence, a mutant wonder child’s insights prove devastating. Science fiction luminary Ted Chiang introduces The Hampdenshire Wonder, one of the genre’s first treatments of superhuman intelligence. Victor Stott is a large-headed “supernormal” mutated in the womb by his parents’ desire to have a child born without habits. Known as “the Wonder;” Victor surveys humankind’s science, philosophy, history, literature, religion—the best that has been thought and said—and dismisses it brutally: “So elementary . . . inchoate . . . a disjunctive patchwork.” Rejecting “the interposing and utterly false concepts of space and time;” the Wonder claims that life itself is merely “a disease of the ether.” Unable to deal with the child’s disenchanting insights, his adult interlocutors seek to silence him . . . perhaps permanently.

Maße: 19.5 x13.0 x2.1 cm