„Последний человек на Земле сидел в комнате. В дверь постучались.“
Кратчайшая страшная история из когда-либо написанных.
Фредерик Браун — известный американский писатель-фантаст, работал также в жанре детектива. Писательская карьера Фредерика Брауна началась в середине 1930 годов, тогда он был репортером журнала «Милуоки», свою карьеру он начал с детективных произведений, однако больше известен благодаря произведениям в жанре юмористической фантастики. Автор более чем тридцати книг. Последняя книга — «Утраченный парадокс»— увидела свет в 1973 г. уже после смерти автора. Wikipedia
„Последний человек на Земле сидел в комнате. В дверь постучались.“
Кратчайшая страшная история из когда-либо написанных.
„Лик опасности ослепляет, когда он повернут к вам так, что вы не можете различить его черт.“
«Этаоин Шрдлу», 1942
перевод: А. Н. Стругацкий (как С. Бережков), 1974
Letter to a Phoenix (p. 337)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
“Her life, except for reading, had been dull—but it had not been in vain.”
Источник: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 20 (p. 570)
“The cat didn’t answer, except possibly by not answering.”
Источник: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 15 (p. 534)
“Are you interested in science?”
“Of course I am. Who isn’t?”
Источник: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 13 (p. 520)
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 5 “2001” (pp. 243-244; "ascetism" should be "asceticism")
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 4 “2000” (p. 242)
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 3, “1999” (p. 233)
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 3, “1999” (p. 230)
“A lot of my childhood playmates ended up behind bars and I don’t mean as bartenders.”
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 3, “1999” (p. 214)
Источник: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 1, “1997” (p. 147)
“He could see now what a lot of his mistakes had been—laziness among them. And laziness is curable.”
Источник: What Mad Universe (1949), Chapter 9 “The Dope on Dopelle” (p. 80)
“Well, let’s call his age as pushing sixty and not mention from which direction he was pushing it.”
The Ring of Hans Carvel (p. 637)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
“A new racket, probably. A depression breeds rackets as a swamp breeds mosquitoes.”
Part 2, Chapter 2 (p. 277)
Martians, Go Home (1955)
Come and Go Mad (p. 291)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
Pi in the Sky (p. 242)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
The Angelic Angleworm (p. 70)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
“The face of danger is brightest when turned so its features cannot be seen.”
Etaoin Shrdlu (p. 33)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)
“Please concentrate on how the system is governed.”
Crag let his mind think about the two parties—both equally crooked and corrupt—that ran the planets between them, mostly by cynical horse trading methods that betrayed the common people on both sides. The Guilds and the Syndicates—popularly known as the Guilds and the Gildeds—one purporting to represent capital and the other purporting to represent labor, but actually betraying it at every opportunity. Both parties getting together to rig elections so they might win alternately and preserve an outward appearance of a balance of power and a democratic government. Justice, if any, obtainable only by bribery. Objectors or would-be reformers—and there weren’t many of either—eliminated by the hired thugs and assassins both parties used. Strict censorship of newspapers, radio and television, extending even to novels lest a writer attempt to slip in a phrase that might imply that the government under which he lived was less than perfect.
Источник: Short fiction, Gateway to Glory (1950), pp. 610-611