Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

The description for this edition of the book is missing. It should be:

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With undue smugness, civilized man continues his attempts to master inner and outer space. Psycholinguistic and space-travel projects extend, in different directions, the limits of our knowledge and understanding.

But there are already others in touch with realties which scientists can barely comprehend: a tribe of Amazonian Indians has evolved, under drugs, ways of seeing and expressing which shatter conventional ideas of the real world, and beings from a planet 1103 light years away arrive to offer the secrets of inter-stellar space travel – at a price.

Can we face these challenges, offered by simple savages and ultra-sophisticated aliens? Or are these enormous strides forward too much for us to grasp? In a brilliant novel of staggering invention but powerful scientific authenticity Ian Watson portrays the dilemma of a civilization blinkered by its own outlook and recoiling from its own progress.

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Thanks, Matthew