Form: Novelette
Year: 1982
Publication history:
- 1982 : Perpetual Light (pb) , Warner
- 1983 : The Best Science Fiction of the Year Vol. 12 (pb) , Pocket
- 1983 : Nebula Award Stories 18 (hc) , Arbor House
- 1984 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (hc) , Science Fiction Book Club, 243 pp., 1642
- 1984 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (hc) , Arbor House
- 1985 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (hc) , Gollancz (UK), 284 pp., 03544-7
- 1985 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (pb) , Bantam, 317 pp., ISBN 0-553-25077-9
- 1987 : Det brokiga cocktailpartyt (pb) , Korpen (Sweden), ISBN 91-7374-186-8 (in Swedish tr. Erik Andersson)
- 1989 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (pb) , Gollancz (UK), 284 pp., 04622-8
- 1991 : Sacred Visions (pb) , Tor
- 2000 : Fictionwise (ol) , Fictionwise
- 2000 : Sci-Fi.com (ol) ,
- 2000 : The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (ol) , Peanut Press
- 2003 : Voile vers Byzance: Nouvelles au fil du temps, tome 3, 1981-1987 (tpb) , Flammarion (France), 768 pp., ISBN 2080682547, 41 (in French "Le pape des chimpanzés")
|
|
Comments:
Nominated for Nebula Award for best short story, 1982. This is the moving story of a long-term chimpanzee sign-language project. When one of the scientists studying the chimps gets leukemia and talks to them about death, the chimps develop a religion. Humans are above chimps, and God is above humans. When chimps die, they become human; when humans die, they go to God. The time period is unspecified (apparently late twentieth century), and there is no technology mentioned. In fact, some might say it's not science fiction at all. An interesting side note is that Silverberg, himself atheist, assumes a more or less Christian perspective for the story. Another odd thing is that the first person narrator is never given a name.
|