![]() ![]() Gollancz are now bringing out his back catalogue as eBooks. His work has tended to be difficult to get hold of, being out of print or only published intermittently in odd editions. His books are firmly in the pulp fiction tradition, adventurous and fizzing with ideas and plot twists, but sometimes lacking in characterisation and with the science secondary to the plot. He was part of the British new wave science fiction of the 60s and 70s, and was associated with New Worlds magazine along with Michael Moorcock and J G Ballard, though as Fantastic Fiction says, 'of the three, Bayley was perhaps the most inventive and the least successful'. Barrington Bayley is something of an acquired taste. A crew set out to find new sails, but instead become involved in a galactic war and the search for the Philosopher's Stone, in a novel about escape, both physical and intellectual. Earth has become a backwater, and a lack of ether sails has cut off contact and made trade increasingly difficult. 'Star Winds' is set a few thousand years in the future, where alchemy has become the predominant science and space travel is possible through ether sails which catch the star winds. I'm pretty sure there were multiple characters in the book, but if so it's kind of irrelevant to the functioning of the story. No, I didn't mention any characters by name. This is the sort of book (a DAW paperback original from the 1970s) where the entire book is maybe 60,000 words long, and the part where they laboriously convert an airship to be capable of venturing into space, and make the perilous voyage to Mars in search of a missing fragment of an alchemical text that will allow them to create the Philosopher's Stone, is just the first half of the story. Of course, nobody on Earth has done this for generations - we're too close to the Sun to weave the sailcloth properly, and nobody comes here any more, so such ships as remain stick entirely within the atmosphere, riding on increasingly tattered patchwork sails. It's kind of gloriously ridiculous - set a few thousand years in the future, and see, we were totally wrong!!!! It turns out that the alchemists were right: everything is comprised of the five elements - earth, air, water, fire and ether - and you can actually craft "sails" that catch etheric currents and can be used to make your ship sail through the air, or even out into space. This is a book I remember finding (and taking home) frequently on the paperback spinners at the public library when I was young. Poems, from A Russian Cultural Revival, University of Tennessee Press, 1981.Probably one more star than it deserves, but rounded up for nostalgia.Among the Mayflower ’s most-distinguished voyagers were William Bradford and Captain Myles Standish. ![]() Terapiano's subjects included Russia, The Crimea, the Russian Civil War, his own war experiences, daily émigré life in Paris, and his exploration of religious issues and questions. When the Speedwell proved unseaworthy and was twice forced to return to port, the Mayflower set out alone from Plymouth, England, on September 16, after taking on some of the smaller ship’s passengers and supplies. He aspired toward "simplicity in his artistic method, self-awareness, moderation and purity of expression, and an intense search for God," according to critic Konstantin Mochulsky. Terapiano's poetry shows the influence of the Acmeist school, though formally he wasn't a member of the circle. He also published a novella Voyage to an Unknown Country: Eastern Legends (Paris - 1946). Terapiano published six books of poetry but became known mostly for his collection of memoirs and articles Meetings (Встречи, 1953), and the Russian émigré anthology The Muse of Diaspora (Муза диаспоры, 1960). In 1955 he became the head of the literary criticism section of the Paris magazine Russian Thought (Русская Мысль). In 1924, after his emigration to France, he organized and chaired the Union of Young Poets and Prose Writers in Paris. His early works were published in various Kiev literary journals. ![]() Afterwards, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army to fight on the Southeastern front during World War I. Yuri Terapiano graduated from the Alexandrovskaya Classical High School in 1911, and then from the Saint Vladimir University Law School in Kiev in 1916. Yuri Konstantinovich Terapiano ( Russian: Ю́рий Константи́нович Терапиа́но, 21 October 1892 – 3 July 1980) was a Russian poet, writer, translator, literary critic and a prominent figure in White émigré cultural life. ![]()
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