Midsummer Century Author:James Blish In the year 25,000 A.D . . . When John Martels returned to consciousness he found himself the Delphic Oracle of a world far different from the Twentieth Century. Humanity had risen and fallen three times and was back once again in a semi-primitive state. He shared his oracular powers with a mind and a device left over from the last Rebirth . . .... more » but the real problem was not rebuilding civilization, it was that another genus of creatures had arisen to claim inheritance of the world--the evolved, strangely intelligent birds, whose priority was the elimination of the world's former masters . . .
Memories of Macbeth and Edgar Allan Poe would have made Martels shudder had he been in hos right body, but Tlam was still nominally in charge, and he froze again. Fro very disparate reasons, neither of the two minds was surprised when the bird's bead parted, its throat ruffled and pulsed, and it said in a voice like fingernails on a blackboard: "Go home."« less