Dearest cover

Dearest

Rating 2.5
Word count
38K words
Chapters
4

Tags

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dearest by H. Beam PiperAuthor: Piper, H. Beam, 1904-1964,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 22, 2006

Editor's review

Dearest is a short work by Golden Age science fiction writer H. Beam Piper, a free English-language title in the public-domain ebook project Project Gutenberg. Piper is known for ingeniously constructed, briskly paced social science fiction and timeline stories, and this piece continues his style of using a single unexpected premise to create absurdity and irony; it is brief enough to read in one sitting in spare moments. As an English original, its language difficulty is moderate and its sentence structures are not complex, making it a light entry point for science fiction fans and English learners into mid-twentieth-century American genre literature. Its value lies not in deep philosophical speculation but in the author's sharp observation of human weaknesses and social mechanisms, making it an easy and slightly darkly humorous read. Suitable for readers interested in early science fiction who want to learn about public-domain ebook resources.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who enjoy Golden Age science fiction short stories and want a light English original to finish in one sitting
  • English learners who want to build reading volume through short English fiction
  • Explorers interested in Project Gutenberg public-domain ebook resources

Not a good fit for

  • Science fiction readers expecting long, complex worldbuilding or hard scientific extrapolation
  • Readers who rely entirely on Chinese and have no habit of reading English originals

Reading tips

  1. Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit key dialogue to appreciate the author's satirical touch.
  2. Guess unfamiliar words from context first, and look them up together after finishing a section.
  3. Read alongside other Piper short stories to observe common features of his premise-building technique.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4

FAQ

Is this book a Chinese edition?
No. This is an English-language original ebook provided by Project Gutenberg. The text is in English, and no official Chinese translation is included with the book; basic English reading ability is required.
Is it long, and how long does it take to finish?
This is a short work with a modest original length. Readers with some English foundation can usually finish it in one or two focused reading sessions, suitable for fragmented time such as commuting or before bed.
Do I need to pay or register?
Project Gutenberg is known for providing free ebooks, and such public-domain works can usually be downloaded and read for free. For specific access methods, refer to the platform's page instructions at the time.

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About the author

Henry Beam Piper Author · American · 1904–1964

The American science fiction writer H. Beam Piper (1904–1964) was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Self-taught, he worked for many years for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He published his first science fiction story in 1947 and went on to write prolifically; 35 of his works are held in this collection. His best-known works include Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, Omnilingual, and The Cosmic Computer, as well as the Terro-Human Future History series. His fiction often centers on contact with alien civilizations, problems of linguistics and translation, interstellar politics, and future history, driving its plots through solid technical and social world-building and combining adventure with speculative reflection; his depiction of deciphering alien documents in Omnilingual is especially admired. He died in 1964. Public information about him is limited and biographical details remain sparse, yet his work still finds readers in English-language science fiction.

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