The first starship to Centauri could only carry 120lb. of human being, yet required three specialist crewmen to handle it. The solution was radical but relatively simple. Take a twelve-year-old girl weighing 100lb., and impress the personalities of three ideal crew members on her mind. These 'shadow' crewmen then took the ship—with the girl—to the stars. Quite naturally the four became close friends—which would make for a decidedly complex problem when they returned. From the psychiatrists point of view he's merely restoring the girl's sanity. But from the crew's point of view it's murder! Here is a unique collection from a distinctive author whose works include such classic titles as Dark Universe and Similacron-3. Project Barrier showcases five loosely-connected stories, never before published in the U.S. In 'Rub-a-Dub' Galouye helps us explore what it is that makes us human, in a future were advanced technologies can copy a person’s mental imprint—or is it their soul?—into someone else’s body. And in 'Shuffle Board', we leap forward into a potential future that explores the damage the human race has caused to Earth, and to our very own genome itself. For what is it that makes us who we are? Our mind, or what it is housed in? Galouye takes this concept one step further when he places humanity on new planets in 'Recovery Area',' and 'Reign of the Telepuppets', to show us how Man can (re)discover himself, when experiencing a first contact scenario. Do we rise to the occasion, as a race, or show our uglier side as a result of miscommunication and ignorance? How better to answer that question, then to read what happens in the collection’s title piece, 'Project Barrier', where Galouye dazzles the reader with the most tantalizing “What if?” in the entire book. The novelette is a fascinating study of a possible evolutionary decision we could make, as we expand our spiritual and galactic horizons. Galouye is going to mess with your mind, and make you think, as you consider the moral implications this collection offers forth…. Enjoy the journey. It’s going to be one hell of a bumpy ride!
Author
Daniel Francis Galouye (11 February 1920 – 7 September 1976) was an American science fiction writer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he contributed novelettes and short stories to various digest-size science fiction magazines, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Louis G. Daniels. After Galouye (pronounced Gah-lou-ey) graduated from Louisiana State University (B.A.), he worked as a reporter for several newspapers. During World War II, he served in the US Navy as an instructor and test pilot, receiving injuries that led to later health problems. On December 26, 1945, he married Carmel Barbara Jordan. From the 1940s until his retirement in 1967, he was on the staff of The States Item. He lived in New Orleans but also had a summer home across Lake Pontchartrain at St. Tammany Parish in Covington, Louisiana. In 1952, he sold his first novelette, Rebirth, to Imagination and then branched out to other digests, including Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Between 1961 and 1973, Galoyue wrote five novels, notably Simulacron Three, basis of the movie The Thirteenth Floor and the 1973 German TV miniseries, Welt am Draht (directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder). His first novel, Dark Universe (1961) was nominated for a Hugo. In 2007, Galouye was named as the recipient of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which is co-sponsored by the heirs of Paul M.A. Linebarger (who wrote as Cordwainer Smith) and Readercon. The jury for this award recognizes a deceased genre writer whose work should be "rediscovered" by the readers of today, and that newly rediscovered writer is a deceased guest of honor at the following year's Readercon. Galouye was named 6 July 2007 by Barry N. Malzberg and Gordon Van Gelder, speaking on behalf of themselves and the other two judges, Martin H. Greenberg and Mike Resnick.
