THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS

In an unwritten occult teaching various ascending orders of spacetime are defined in terms of 'the Knights of the Limits'

The Great Short Fiction of Barrington Bayley 1965-78

Allison & Busby, 1978 Fontana, 615994/10 1980, cover art by unknown

Nine brilliant stories of infinite space and alien consciousness, suffused with a sense of wonder...

Contents:

The Exploration of Space
The Bees of Knowledge
Exit from City 5
Me and My Antronoscope
All the King's Men
An Overload
Mutation Planet
The Problem of Morley's Emission
The Cabinet of Oliver Naylor

"These stories have all the distinguishing marks of Bayley's novels: typically a tightly controlled society is shattered by some technological or scientific development. [...] the ideas are the thing, and Bayley has more of them than almost anybody else." - David Pringle

"..perhaps the most significant work BJB produced in the 1970s was in short fiction, most of it collected [here], a remarkable (though astonishingly bleak) assembly of experiments in the carrying of story ideas to the end of their tether." - John Clute

"[KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS] makes astonishing reading. It reminds one that the power of British New Wave was not due to its decalcifying treatment of sex or the fact that much of its readership was stoned. Those ephemera blew away with the hash fumes over Ladbroke Grove. What is left is sheer visionary intensity, which Bayley has always had and displays today even more vigorously." - Bruce Sterling

"Startling effects... unusual and bizarre storylines." - Time Out

"The cream of Bayley's short fiction... complex, innovative, bold and striking." - Brian Stableford, Vector

"He is steadily increasing his reputation in SF circles and is destined to join the names of other SF greats." - Cosmic Themes

[read Brian Stableford's article/review of the collection]

Barrington Bayley: I grew up with the science fiction of the forties and the fifties, much of which used downbeat endings, and it never occurred to me that many regard these as emotionally unsatisfying. To me they're not. So my predilection for these proved an additional handicap when I began writing myself."