How's this for intriguing?
. . . never was there a race so different from all his fellows as Man. He was extinct barely seventeen millennia after he strode boldly out into the galaxy from this, the planet of his birth—but during that brief interval he wrote a chapter in galactic history that will last forever. He claimed the stars for his own, colonized a million worlds, ruled his empire with an iron will. He gave no quarter during his primacy, and he asked for none during his decline and fall. Even now, some forty-eight centuries after his extinction, his accomplishments and his failures still excite the imagination.
That's on Page One of Mike Resnick's Hugo/Nebula Award winning story Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge, which I happened to notice while reading Wikipedia's list of works which won both awards.
Having once studied anthropology, the name Olduvai Gorge piqued my interest, so I went looking for further info. Here's part of what Wikipedia says about the novella: "The alien archaeologists sent there study humanity's rise and fall in the legendary home of its emergence in East Africa. In the course of the story the aliens learn about the cruelty and glory of human history."
Well, how can I resist that? My library doesn't have it, but fortunately Subterranean Press has put the entire thing online.
Postscript: I have now read it. It's . . . disturbing.
Further reading: Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game.
Posted by Linkmeister at April 1, 2010 12:01 AM | TrackBack