A STORY BY URSULA K. LE GUIN⠀•⠀EIGHT COLLAGES BY CLIVE KNIGHTS

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is science fiction at its finest, wielding imagination to strike at our deepest questions. It imagines a city, Omelas, in which the people are perfectly happy and prosperous and equal. In short, a utopia. But utopia is hardly believable. As the story proceeds the narrator (possibly Le Guin herself?) pleads with us to believe her description, to believe that it is not too fantastical or far-fetched. Finally, she reveals the city's dark secret: stored away somewhere in a basement is a maltreated child. The people of Omelas are forbidden from rescuing him, or even offering him comfort. Somehow (the reason is beyond their understanding), their happiness depends on the wretched suffering of just one. Do you believe in Omelas now?

This science fiction masterpiece is so powerful because it leaves so much to the imagination of its reader. One reader, celebrated artist Clive Knights, has picked up where Le Guin left off, filling the space around the story in his suite of sixty-one collage artworks collectively entitled, After Omelas. His interaction with the text is profound, providing a suite of artwork which exemplifies the ability of art to explain the unexplainable and explore what we fail to grasp in words. Our edition features eight of Clive's collages, reproduced giclée on archival plates and tipped-in by hand on a secondary paper throughout the book. They are entitled: Jettisoned, size migration, heart beaten, crimson isle, city of ashes, council of idiots, nearly as wide, and figmentation.

To honor science fiction's vast sweep into the future, and the grounding of private presswork in our past, we have striven to achieve a design aesthetic which balances past and future. Without sacrificing the finesse of private presswork, we have tried to capture the electric power of the genre. Le Guin's haunting story faces the stunning collages of Clive Knights. We are thrilled to present his work alongside Le Guin's. Moreover, as Portland Oregon's only private press, we are honored to bring together our city's most famous writer with one of its most eminent artists. 

We have hoped to fuse these diverse elements into a harmonious whole in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

THE SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGY

The Men Return is the third in No Reply's SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGY, three editions showcasing three of the genre's greatest short stories:

•⠀The Last Question by Isaac Asimov, with the woodcuts of Rockwell Kent

•⠀The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, with collages by Clive Knights

•⠀The Men Return by Jack Vance, introduced by the author's son and with linocuts by Karol Pomykała

These three stories pushed the frontiers of the genre. They strikingly demonstrate that Science Fiction is not actually the realm of spaceships and aliens, so much as the realm of metaphysics and our place in the universe. No Reply is proud to present them together, alongside an extraordinary cast of contributors.