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Harry Harrison
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One Step from Earth Kindle Edition

by Harry Harrison (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

What if we could transfer objects, even people, across the galaxy in the blink of an eye?

What hidden secrets would it reveal? What deadly dangers would it conceal?

Will any part of human life be the same when the vastness of the Universe lies only ONE STEP FROM EARTH?


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Tor Books
  4. Publication date
    September 15, 1985
  5. File size
    303 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008KP3OL4
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books (September 15, 1985)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 15, 1985
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 303 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

About the author

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Harry Harrison

Harry Harrison

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Harry Max Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey; March 12, 1925 – August 15, 2012) was an American science fiction (SF) author, best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). The latter was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973). Harrison was (with Brian Aldiss) the co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.

Aldiss called him "a constant peer and great family friend". His friend Michael Carroll said, "Imagine Pirates of the Caribbean or Raiders of the Lost Ark, and picture them as science-fiction novels. They're rip-roaring adventures, but they're stories with a lot of heart."

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Szymon Sokół (Picture taken at Worldcon 2005) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
18 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Ramon Alberto Carabeo Cerra
    5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book by the master of SF
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    They are many SF writers but Harry Harrison is on the pantheon of the greatest , must read for all fans of his work
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  • George V. Neville-Neil
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good fun but the first story really is the best the bunch.
    Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2016
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    Good fun but the first story really is the best the bunch. The rest is standard fare. Not much else to say.
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  • Michael K. Smith
    4.0 out of 5 stars Harry Harrison was a wonder
    Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2013
    Science fiction is a fertile ground for thematic anthologies, though they usually are organized by an editor with an idea who invites submissions from a collection of authors. In this case, the work is all Harry's and he posits a simple idea. Suppose you could build a matter transmitter? A black-seeming screen that you could step through like a doorway and emerge, without the passage of time, across the room -- or the planet -- or the galaxy. What could you do with such a device? What would aggressive governments do with it? What would be the popular reaction? The long-range consequences? Imagine a future in which an engineer working on a space station orbiting Saturn can commute home to San Diego every night. Imagine interstellar exploration in which you could step through from Earth to a robotic ship that has been traveling at near relativistic velocities for decades, check for habitable planets, then step back to Earth. There are all sorts of possibilities here and Harry makes excellent use of ten of them.

    "In the Beginning" is the set-up, how the matter transmitter -- the MT or "transmatter" -- is invented and fails to be kept secret. "One Step from Earth" tells of its use to reach Mars and plant the first colony, which is much easier to manage when you're only a step from home base. "Pressure" is an Astounding-style tale of scientific exploration at the bottom of the Saturnian 20,000-mile-thick atmosphere. "No War, or Battle's Sound" moves us three thousand years or so into a future in which Earth is threaten by invasion via MT, and the style is almost Heinleinian. "Wife to the Lord" is a whimsically tongue-in-cheek yarn of the theological consequences of being the only person on a feudal planet with access to matter transmission. "Waiting Place" considers the use by civilized worlds of one-way matter transmission to rid themselves of criminals and other social undesirables. "The Life Preservers" takes on the problem of nearly instantaneous transmission of plagues and disease mutations between planets of disparate ecologies. "From Fanaticism, or for Reward" explores the use a political assassin might make of instantaneous matter-transmission in making his escape -- at least for awhile. "Heavy Duty" puts a contact specialist on a world that has been cut off for millennia from the rest of civilization, and considers the social price of re-establishing contact. And in the far, far future of "A Tale of the Ending" a man's home -- his very existence -- is incredibly diffuse, with each room or location he moves through being situated on, or beneath, a different world, all connected by Doors. How to you view the universe when every place in it is only a step from every other place? And what does such wide choice of location do to the natural human life-cycle? And how do you go about discovering where, among a near-infinity of worlds, Man started out? (Could we really once have been confined to a single planet -- as unnatural as that seems?)

    Happily, Harry Harrison, while best known for his humorous adventures, is a lot deeper than that. All of these stories deal not just with speculative technology but with the effects of technology on people individually and on society collectively. (There are no alien life forms in this particular future, so the human angle is all there is.) Technology changes. People don't, not really. These stories are very well-written examples of the best sort of "what if" writing.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Tank
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Collection of Short Stories Around One Theme
    Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2016
    From the invention of the matter transmitter to the far future, this is a chronological set of stories revolving around that invention and its consequences.

    Harrison rarely disappoints and this collection is no different. Each story is engaging and oft times fun to read. After the last one, I was sad that it was over. I was also wondering what "being human" really is.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Alan Lutton
    4.0 out of 5 stars A classic
    Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2005
    A series of interconnected short stories, "One Step From Earth" chronicles the future history of the discovery of B-space - instant teleportation between huge distances just by stepping through a doorway. From the first discovery through the far, far future we see how humanity adapts to the technology, and how the technology adapts to humanity's needs. From colonizing Mars, to contact with alien life, to interstellar war, to the future of human evolution, Harrison intersperses bits of humor, intrigue, crime and mystery as only he can. A delightful read!
    4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • K. E. Gould
    5.0 out of 5 stars For a pre-owned book the conidion was good
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 29, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    The product was a gift for a budding Sci Fi writer. I gave to because it explores the notion of matter transport from nascent first trip (where the story is more about the build up to the step through) to a world where matter transportation is just another ubiquitous tool in society. Had this anthology of short stories been in print I would have purchase a new copy. If you like Sci Fi and haven't had the pleasure of reading Harry Harrisons work I commend this and his other works (especially the Stainless Steel rat series).
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  • K. J. STEVENSON
    5.0 out of 5 stars GOOD QUAL. ITEM - WELL PACKED - ARRIVED IN PERFECTLY GOOD TIME - WILL USE AGAIN
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    GOOD QUAL. ITEM - WELL PACKED - ARRIVED IN PERFECTLY GOOD TIME - WILL USE AGAIN
    Enjoyed re-reading this classic - hasn't dated a bit
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  • ivoconk
    4.0 out of 5 stars Inventive but a bit dated
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 17, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    I grew up reading all of Harry Harrison’s novels and short stories and loved the Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld series. This one is a curio - stories all linked by the idea of the matter transmitter or teleport device. It’s a bit dated - men do all the serious stuff and women are rarely seen or mentioned - but some of the story ideas are very inventive, especially the final one which anticipates the kind of distributed life that the internet now allows us. The one thing that’s really missing is the playful sense of humour that characterises so much of Harrison’s other work - this one is serious to the core.
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