Federation (short story collection)

Federation is a collection of short stories by American writer H. Beam Piper, edited by John F. Carr. The book was published in 1981 by Ace Books, and again in 1982, 1983 and 1986. Most of these stories take place in the early part of his Terro-Human Future History.

First edition, cover art by Michael Whelan.

Contents
  • Essay: “Piper's Foundation” by Jerry Pournelle
  • Introduction by John F. Carr.
  • "Omnilingual (first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1957)
  • "Naudsonce" (First appeared in Analog, January 1962)
  • "Oomphel in the Sky" (first appeared in Analog, November 1960)
  • "Graveyard of Dreams" (first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction. February 1958)
  • "When in the Course" (previously unpublished)
gollark: Where else would they go?
gollark: What? Of course they are in our universe.
gollark: Those aren't heaven and hell, silly.
gollark: > The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, “Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8 says “But the fearful, and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. – “Applied Optics”, vol. 11, A14, 1972
gollark: This is because it canonically receives 50 times the light Earth does.

References
  • "Publication Listing: Federation". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2009-02-28.

Awards
  • 1982 — Locus Poll Award, Best Single Author Collection


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