Gerald David Nordley ha esordito come narratore nel 1991, ormai quasi vent’anni fa. Americano, degree in physics, was the official U.S. Air Force, dealing with engineering communications, satellite communications and propulsion systems for astronautical vehicles. Once retired, in addition to technical and scientific essays began to write fiction, now showing an excellent author of hard sf , and especially versed in the history of planetary exploration and colonization of space usually writes fiction using the name G. David Nordley, and essays as Gerald D. Nordley.
Its not wide fame, especially in Italy where I think it is really known a few, may be due to the fact di venir identificato in modo stretto con la rivista Analog , sulla quale ha pubblicato gran parte dei suoi lavori e il cui tipo di fantascienza ha interpretato con esattezza e accuratezza; ma ritengo che la causa principale risieda nel fatto che la produzione di Nordley si compone di soli racconti e novelle (di cui in Italia è giunta una assai sparuta scelta), e appena alla fine dello scorso anno egli ha pubblicato il suo primo romanzo.
Nel Grande Rift di Miranda , che fu finalista sia al premio Hugo che al Nebula nella categoria della novella, è un saggio davvero perfetto della sua fantascienza, e un superbo esempio moderno di racconto planetary exploration.
With a no-nonsense style, almost like a scientific report, but that weaves a brief narrative in which he explores engraved - or rather sketch effect - the character and motivations of his characters, carries the reader Nordley in a nightmare scenario in a time and dream that dream is to be understood as the effect of old-fashioned sense of wonder from where it is invested. The novel opens in the middle of the action in the bowels of Miranda, the innermost and smallest of the giant moons of Uranus. A large stone sidereal, born from the collision and merger of smaller objects, whose interior is tutto percorso da fratture, canyons e rifts , grandi e piccole caverne. Un lontano discendente della Terra verniana del Voyage au centre de la Terre , che del resto l’autore cita espressamente come fonte di ispirazione. I quattro protagonisti del racconto, due uomini e due donne impegnati in una missione di esplorazione geologica e speleologica dell’interno del satellite, si sono appena ritrovati tagliati fuori dalla superficie di Miranda a causa di un terremoto inusualmente violento che quasi li ha seppelliti, e debbono affrontare la prospettiva di una risalita per decine di kilometri. Ammesso che sia possibile.
The diary chronicles the writer's group, Wojcech Bubka, dipanerà is the account of this journey in extreme conditions, in which each of the characters must confront their weaknesses, their ghosts - and risk damnation . But above all, in the best tradition of science fiction campbelliana, each of them discover the hidden resources of your mind and noble, those who perhaps did not even know you had.
Nordley's prose is deceptively slow, sometimes it seems sleepy, and then suddenly plunge the characters in the drama, adding to the reader. E 'on the quiet prose, flat, yet majestic, which describes that natural Nordley nightmare that is the heart cracked, broken and continuous telluric movement of Miranda. E 'to this extreme nature that they are forced to launch their challenge for survival Wojcech and his companions: the geologist Nikhil Ray, the doctor and his wife Cathy of these, and his girlfriend of Wojcech, the expert caving Randi Lotati.
During the three weeks of the story of a real odyssey Promethean, Nordley gives shows the skill with which he is able to modulate action, deepening Scientific, warm human emotions, and a very strong sense of wonder. The story may seem - inevitably - claustrophobic, with narrow descriptions of those terrible, loopholes through which human bodies are struggling to pass, that bones are crushed by the fragility caused by the near absence of gravity and the pressure of the rock. Then passed to the description of infinite cracks, crossing miles of that same rock coming to the surface of the satellite. A fascinating story, sometimes not easy to follow because fraught with inserts that refer to the scientific mind to the (best) evidence of Hal Clement, one of the deans of sf and true master of the most linked scientific extrapolation. But a narrative that involves for the dance between anxiety and relief that can be achieved; for that swirl of emotions. As relations between the four protagonists are subjected to a similar stress, and the extreme conditions that are forced to live (and live-) result in a collaboration so painful, hard as that is also animated by contradictory generosity and solidarity that human beings know how to show. It is no coincidence that their relationship will end in something that may look more or less depending on the friendship of the eye of the beholder, but in the end is different from "mere" friendship.
will also this tremendous journey in which each of them hurt, and saves each of the others to find a key to Nikhil and Cathy does not destroy their couple relationship and themselves with it, and to Randi and Wojcech establish a real relationship. In this painful catharsis arrive to thaw and resolve feelings of guilt removed and badly healed Randi and Cathy, sadism (in) confessed to Nikhil and his need for intellectual and social revenge, opportunism and a sense of inadequacy Wojcech .
E ', by tradition, a fiction that closes on the tones of optimism. Man triumphs (as opposed to alienation: the four in the large cavity inside the bodies of Miranda and the remains of an alien expedition of over two hundred thousand years old and not so lucky as they will). Optimism and triumphalism, however, different from those of a few decades ago. The difference is so realistic tone, described by the heroism so much raw, but it is above all a sense of responsibility that can not be shunned to mark the distance. Each of the four protagonists, Randi, Cathy, and their singer Wojcech Nikhil, will simply per soccombere al “dovere” di sopravvivere in qualche modo. E quindi sopravvivrà. Ognuno di loro vi riuscirà uscendo dal proprio isolamento per far gruppo, trovando fuori di sé l’ultima parte di risolutezza necessaria a non soccombere; questa volta non a un dovere, ma al Grande Rift di Miranda.
Edita in origine sul fascicolo del luglio 1993 di Analog , la novella è stata pubblicata in Italia sul numero dell’inverno 1995 (il terzo) dell’edizione nostrana della rivista, edita dalla Phoenix e purtroppo durata in tutto cinque numeri. La cura editoriale e la traduzione sono obiettivamente abbastanza lacking.
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