"The Shadow of Wings"
by Robert Silverberg
Form: Short story
Year: 1963
ID: 1004
Publication history:
- 1963: Worlds of If July 1963, Magazine
- 1966: Needle in a Timestack [1st Version], Ballantine Mass market paperback, 190 pp.
- 1967: Needle in a Timestack [1st Version], Sphere Mass market paperback, 190 pp.
- 1970: The Cube Root of Uncertainty, Macmillan Hard cover book
- 1970: Needle in a Timestack [1st Version], Ballantine Mass market paperback, 1970 pp.
- 1971: The Cube Root of Uncertainty, Signet Mass market paperback, 239 pp.
- 1979: Needle in a Timestack [2nd Version], Sphere Mass market paperback, 149 pp.
- 1985: Needle in a Timestack [2nd Version], Ace Mass market paperback, ISBN 0-441-56872-6, 180 pp.
Other resources:
[None on record]
Comments:
Dr. John Donaldson is the world's number one expert on the alien language called Kethlan, known from ancient documents on Mars and the Moon, so when a living Kethlan shows up, he is of course called to translate. But it's so unpleasant how alien aliens can be. And the assumptions made on the basis of millennia-old writings may not be accurate today.