A World of Difference

by Edmund Cooper

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Space Opera

Synopsis

This collection contains one long novella, 'The Firebird', which some critics regard this as Edmund Cooper's finest work. Two stories were written especially for the collection and the remaining stories were written and published over a number of years in various magazines but have not been collected together before in book form. The theme of all the stories is fantasy. Edmund Cooper is fascinated by worlds of the imagination as much as the real world which he sometimes satirises in his books. In this collection, there are elements of tragic fantasy and also of humorous and satirical fantasy. Here are the best of his fantasy stories in one volume. This book contains the following: Introduction The Firebird Jahweh The Diminishing Dragon The Snow Crystals Second Chance I Am a Ghost

Release date: November 30, 2012

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 192

Sample

For many years I have written science fiction — a genre which, at its best, has always seemed to me to be concerned with the art of the possible. I do not like galactic empires, quasi-magic weapons, celestial cops and robbers. These are strictly for the kindergarten — and for such misguided folk who believe that “Star Wars”, “Star Trek” and “Dr. Who” are the quintessence of visual science fiction. If they would only take the trouble to read or re-read such novels as Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-four, Player Piano and A Clockwork Orange, they would discover what science fiction is really about.

It is concerned basically with the human predicament in possible scenarios usually set in the future.

There is another literary genre which is almost the antithesis of science fiction: it is fantasy. Good S.F. attempts to deal with the affairs of imaginary people in a potentially real world. Fantasy draws upon symbols and dreams and psychological archetypes for its literary potency.

Folk-lore and myth are the precursors of modern fantasy. Magic, good and evil gods and supermortals, symbolic quests, breathtakingly beautiful women held in thrall, ghosts, goblins, demons — these are all part of a cultural heritage that is lost in the mists of time.

I do not usually write fantasy; but, I suppose, everyone is haunted by dreams now and again — dreams that may persist even in one’s waking life.

Such a dream was “The Firebird”, a novella which takes up more than half of this book. For a writer, there is only one way to exorcise such a vivid dream; and that is to get it down on paper. Of course, the dream was not exactly as it has been recorded, nor was there such a wealth of detail. It was necessary for the writer to intrude upon the province of the dreamer. It was compulsive writing, almost automatic; as if I were simply taking dictation. The novella was written in less than three weeks, several years ago. It was first published in the U.S.A. where it was well received.

The American writer and critic, Lin Carter, in an introduction to the story, surprised me greatly. He made learned reference to mentions and use of the Phoenix symbol by the Roman historian Herodotus; and by Ovid, Dante and Milton. Apparently it also had religious significance as defined in the works of Tertulius, St. Ambrose and Cyrillus of Jerusalem. Even the great modern Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, discusses the myth of the Phoenix in his Book of Imaginary Beings.

I knew nothing about all this before or during the writing of “The Firebird”. I knew only what most people know — that the Phoenix was supposed to be a bird that consumed itself by fire, and rose again from the ashes. So perhaps I have touched upon a sort of racial memory …

One or two of the other fantasy stories in this collection are for more light-hearted. “I am a Ghost”, for example, was written in the 1950’s as a literary joke for a friend who was credulous enough to believe almost everything he had read concerning the supernatural.

Before I had established myself as a writer, I frequently received rather nasty letters from my bank manager; also I was still haunted by experiences in the Second World War. One evening I went to bed, having dined not wisely but too well. The result was a nightmare which I recorded as well as I could in “The Second Chance”.

“The Snow Crystals”, “Jahweh” and “The Diminishing Dragon” obviously have nothing at all to do with personal experience. They were just vague ideas that drifted into my mind; and, as a writer, I tried to explore them.

I do not think I shall write any more fantasy. You know what you are doing with science fiction, but not with fantasy. At least, I don’t. And that makes me just a little afraid …

Madehurst, Sussex.October, 1979.

Dawn.

It was a world of strange shapes and shadows, impossible colours. It was a world of silence and beauty — a dark and dancing world still shivering under the flimsy mantle of light. It was an oyster shell opened to reveal the pearl of exceeding wonder. It was a ripple of music — a moment of sadness in the long and terrible laughter of life. It was the beginning.

On the rolling stillness of the land, trees stood like tired soldiers, washed by the receding tides of mist. But there was no sound, or only the subtle whispers of a stillness before action; for all the hidden manoeuvres of the night were frozen by daybreak. And waiting lay heavily over the landscape, an invisible veil.

The house rose out of the mist, its mellow red bricks damp and shiny, its leaded windows glazed with a million drops of moisture. No smoke drifted from the chimneys, but tiny wisps of vapour hovered delicately upon lichen-daubed tiles, as if their lazy movement mimicked the slow turning of the sleepers below.

The boy looked back at the house and thought of his sleeping family. He was fond of them — as fond as one can be of strangers united only by blood and habit and love — but he had not told them of his intended departure. They would not have understood. They were too old — too old to imagine the shape of unimaginable journeys.

He stood a few paces from the door he had closed so softly behind him and gazed back at a house that had suddenly lost its meaning.

It was now no more than a chrysalis, a dead shell from which his spirit — his essential self — had crept like some bewildered imago.

Dominic was a strange child — strange as all children are until the light dies in their eyes and the fire goes out of their limbs, and their strangeness is swallowed by cities and civilizations, and the empty meaning of clocks. Dominic was a strange child, full of frightened courage and the urgency of forgotten dreams; full of death and immortality, and in love with both.

As he looked at the stillness of the house, he shivered, knowing that he would never enter it again. Dawn was a time of visions and decisions. They swirled about him as the mist swirled, plucking at his feet and fingers, creating in his eyes tears that he would never cry, and making his heart beat with hopes that might never be fulfilled.

But, whatever happened, he knew that he would not go back into the house again; knowing that footsteps can never be retraced, that every moment another moment dies, and that there are too many possibilities waiting to be born for any to have the gift of resurrection.

He did not need words for such thoughts. They were implicit in the transient dew on spider webs, the mist-hidden carpet of grass, the muted rustle of trees and the curdled fiery streaks along the eastern sky.

As the sun rose like a monstrous red balloon from distant pine trees, Dominic began to walk away. There was no sadness, only a sense of leaving.

Dominic half believed he would walk for ever through an eternal morning where mist drifted like a smoky ocean over the entire earth, where early sunlight sent fingers of day through a million cracks and openings in the trees’ rooftops, and where stars faded on the ebb-tide of the west.

He was alone, but there was no sense of loneliness; for the morning had become a green cathedral as he walked among leaning columns of trees, and watched the mist fight a slowly losing battle with the warmth of day. His thoughts were nowhere and everywhere, as daylight whispered of hidden destinations and the blood in his veins sang of a thousand miracles that might imminently happen.

And presently one of them did.

Dominic had reached a small clearing, not far from the lake, where the ruins of a derelict cottage — long rough-hewn beams, studded doors and broken pantiles — were returning to the earth from which they had long ago been drawn. It was a scene of enchantment; for here, obviously, were ghosts — invisible and friendly, bound for ever to a home that was itself a ghost.

Dominic surveyed the debris with pleasure and surprise. He realized that, though he might have passed by the ruined cottage before, he was seeing it for the first time.

The walls of the cottage had been reduced; but with odd persistence one doorway, complete with door, still remained standing. It was surrounded by rubble and ferns and the climbing luxuriance of honeysuckle. It was a green door set in a green world.

But, above all, it was a door that had to be opened. No one, thought Dominic as he scrambled over beams and broken window frames and the mounds of clay that had once been clean white walls, no one could possibly pass by such a door without opening it.

He gazed with delight at the rusty knocker. It was a small iron hand loosely holding a massive ring. Below it, embedded in the door, lay the flattened striking piece, its face covered with a fine green cushion of moss. He lifted the ring and brought it down, but the moss muffled the sound of impact so that it could hardly be heard.

He tried again harder, but the bruised moss still held firm and the sound was swallowed. Dominic hammered on the door with his clenched hand; but the sound was no louder, and no one answered his summons.

He was disappointed. On such a morning such a door should have been opened. It was a time for mysteries and inexplicable happenings; a time for discovery.

Impulsively, he flung himself at the unresponsive door. It yielded easily — more easily than he had expected — and he half fell through the doorway on to what had once been a polished brick floor.

At the same time, his eyes were dazzled by an intense and shimmering light. In the moment that he stumbled, he saw — he thought he saw — a bird of incredible plumage, a thing of fire and radiance, rise silently from the ruins to circle above his head.

There was no sound at all and yet — and yet the air was shaking with music; and there was such a nearness of beauty and power that the earth quivered beneath his feet; and there was the message of bells from a distant temple.

The boy shaded his eyes and glanced up. The looking brought pain — and ecstasy. There it hovered against trees and sky — a creature of flame whose wings made the very air dance with excitement.

Slowly, the Firebird circled over his head. Then, with slow wing beats, it passed silently between the trees.

Dominic gazed spellbound after the bright majestic bird. He stood motionless, watching its fiery shape pass behind trees and over bushes — an unhurried flight that was neither a retreat nor an escape but a subtle invitation to follow.

In a single moment the boy’s life had changed. He had opened a door to nowhere, not knowing that on the other side of the door the Firebird waited.

He rubbed his eyes and thought that he was dreaming. He rubbed his eyes again and knew that he was not dreaming. The reality of the Firebird was beyond doubt. The air was still alive with its memory: the derelict cottage was still somehow radiant with its passing.

Dominic knew that he would follow. He knew that there was nothing else to do but follow; for if he turned back through the doorway there would be nothing left for him but an ordinary world in which to live an ordinary life.

Here on the other side of the door, where the Firebird had been waiting, it was as if the world were in sharper focus — as if the air possessed a sudden tremendous clarity so that colours were brighter, contours sharper, and every leaf, every twig, every blade of grass of immense significance. It was as if the morning had been locked in crystal and the crystal bathed in light.

The boy’s feelings suddenly changed to anxiety as he realized that the Firebird was already out of sight. He began to run, filled with a delicious fear that he had lost it — yet, at the same time, knowing that though he might never actually possess it neither would he ever completely lose it.

As he ran among the trees, Dominic caught another glimpse of the Firebird, perhaps a hundred yards ahead, in calm and unhurried flight. It hovered above a small colony of bramble bushes for a few moments — almost as if it were waiting for him — then it resumed its leisurely flight towards the lake.

By the time Dominic had emerged from the long sprawling patch of trees, the Firebird was already skimming in grace. . .