"Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" is a science fiction short story by Samuel R. Delany. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story 1970, and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1969.
Relationships change and reverse as a thief and impersonator rises up through the ranks to established semi-legit crime boss. The story is told in the first person. Although the protagonist has no fixed identity, he can conveniently be referred ...
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"Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" is a science fiction short story by Samuel R. Delany. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story 1970, and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1969.
Relationships change and reverse as a thief and impersonator rises up through the ranks to established semi-legit crime boss. The story is told in the first person. Although the protagonist has no fixed identity, he can conveniently be referred to as HCE.
HCE is a professional criminal looking to improve his lot in life. He is also quite nervous and paranoid about the world around him, despite his evident successes. He was an orphan, saddled with the name Harold Clancy Everet. As a youth he was sent to work on a highly automated dairy farm in the state of Vermont, although the "cows" were basically inert masses of tissue stacked in a barn and hooked up to tubes. He stole the farmer's helicopter, got drunk, and landed on the roof of the old Pan Am building. Sent to jail, he dedicated...
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