An open letter to the Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America
Introduction to This Edition
PROLOGUE
Goblin Night
CHAPTER 1: “Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven, to His feet thy tribute bring.”
CHAPTER 2: A Look at Jacob’s Ladder
CHAPTER 3: “Go and catch a falling star…”
CHAPTER 4: “Busy old fool, unruly Sun…”
CHAPTER 5: “The Light of Other Days”
CHAPTER 6: A Voyage to Atlantis
CHAPTER 7: How to Build a Beanstalk
CHAPTER 8: “To meet with Caliban”
CHAPTER 9: “Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain”
CHAPTER 10: The Birth of Ourobouros
CHAPTER 11: “What seest thou else, in the dark backward and abysm of time?”
CHAPTER 12: “…at the quiet limit of the world, a white-haired shadow roaming like a dream…”
CHAPTER 13: The Masters of Atlantis
CHAPTER 14: Goblin Mystery
CHAPTER 15: “I do begin to have bloody thoughts”
CHAPTER 16: “Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the Gates of Heaven”
CHAPTER 17: A Bridge to Midgard
Eleven hours. Contact minus 40,000.
One hour. Contact minus 4,000.
Contact minus 600.
Contact minus 60.
Contact.
CHAPTER 18: “Cor contritum quasi cinis, gere curam mei finis”
APPENDIX 1: Notes on Quotes
APPENDIX 2: Beanstalks in Fact and Fiction
Beanstalk basics
Designing a beanstalk
Building the beanstalk
Using the beanstalk
Alternative forms of beanstalk
