6.2 /10 1 Votes
Publication date 1960 | 3.1/5 Goodreads Originally published December 1960 Genre Science Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Analog Science Fiction and Fact Awards Hugo Award for Best Short Story Similar Poul Anderson books, Hugo Award for Best Short Story winners, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"The Longest Voyage" is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1961.
Contents
Plot summary
On a distant world the age of exploration is beginning. A party of daring explorers attempts to circumnavigate their world. In unknown waters they encounter an island civilization which claims to have a prophet who fell from the stars.
Reception
"Voyage" won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
Jean-Daniel Brèque has described 'The Longest Voyage' as "a rousing adventure yarn", "solidly plotted, like a well-oiled mechanism", and "also a work of poetry".
Gardner Dozois, upon selecting 'The Longest Voyage' for inclusion in his 2000 anthology Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons, said that it is "nearly unmatched" in science fiction for its "lyricism, compassion, subtlety, thoughtfulness, and above all the relish it takes in the bristling strangeness and wonder of the world".
Steven H. Silver commented that what distinguishes 'Longest' from similar stories is that "Anderson provides strong motivation for both the explorers and the natives".