Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
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Book Reviews of Spin
Book Review: This won a Hugo?
Summary: 3 Stars
The problem with this book is that it never delivers the goods. It's either an idea in search of a story or a story in need of more interesting ideas.
The actions taken by the characters make zero impact on the final outcome of the Spin. None. *snore* Well, maybe the characters can save the novel? Nah. Jason Lawton is flat as a pancake, the obsessed scientist. Diane Lawton isn't much better. Tyler Dupree can't be called one dimensional because that would require that he actually do something other than hang around Jason and Diane.
How about the ideas? The Spin itself is kinda cool. It could have been the setting for a really interesting novel. Everything after that though... civilizations squander resources until they kill themselves, a big chain of intelligent asteroid huggers, and some explorations into the human response to certain doom. These ideas simply aren't explored enough to interest me.
A number of elements in the story are just cliched or clumsy. As an example, Tyler Dupree likes Jazz. This doesn't advance his character but it does get him out of a jam later. I guess I was supposed to pat Wilson on the back for that little detail but where other authors might make it a seemless affair, the first thought that came to my mind was "tacked on." The mean tycoon father, the alcoholic mother... have I stepped into a soap opera?
I'm not trying to say the novel is terrible but it's so... mediocre. Did any of the Worldcon members(the people who vote on Hugo Awards) actually think this deserved to be set up beside novels like "Double Star," "Dune," "Ringworld," "The Gods Themselves," and "Fahrenheit 451"? I'd like to award "Spin" a Big Meh.
Book Review: "They both turned their heads to the sky."
Summary: 4 Stars
I decided to read Spin for the obvious reasons-- Hugo award winner for 2006, great reviews, interesting looking plot. The back cover put me off a little bit-- "THE TIME IS THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW". Holy Roland Emmerich, Batman! I didn't like that film.
But anyhow, that is the basic premise. One evening, all the stars go away. Humanity finds itself trapped behind a planetary shield which is blocking the earth from time itself. Another reviewer has referred to the Spin shield as a MacGuffin, and I think that this is just about right. The Spin is not really the point. The Spin is the thing that motivates the characters to behave as their natures incline them to do in extremis. It is a device that lets us study character in adversity-- weakness and strength, science and faith, desperation and acceptance. The main character in the book, Tyler Dupree, is a study in moderation compared to his two best friends: Jason and Diane Lawton. His centered personality provides a compass against which both of the siblings' extreme behaviors can be measured.
The thing with calling the Spin a MacGuffin, however, nearly misses the point. It is a marvelous MacGuffin. The plot is really interesting, and I wasn't even really disappointed by the explanation/ending. (I wonder when an author will come up with something like the Spin which just plain old never gets explained. That would be really interesting.) The chase is always better than the kill in these kinds of books, but for me the whole thing stayed very interesting.
All in all, I really liked Spin, and I plan to read Axis, the sequel. Anyone care to recommend where I should begin with Wilson's earlier novels?
Book Review: A Lifetime of Facing the End
Summary: 4 Stars
How would humanity respond if an apocalypse was coming - but we had a lifetime to prepare? That's the primary question raised by Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin", where a dark, permeable membrane suddenly surrounds the earth one night - at which point the earth is accelerated through time, facing the destruction of the earth at the hands of a dying sun in 40-50 years.
Tyler Dupree manages to be at the middle of this - the childhood friend of Jason Lawton, who becomes an expert on the membrane (named "The Spin") and formulates a grand plan to circumvent it. The novel is primarily about how people deal with impending doom - Jason turns to science, his sister Diane to religion; others become fatalistic, hope blindly, or just muddle through as Tyler does, watching things unfold.
Most of the book is told looking back, which drains tension from some scenes, but provides valuable setup for some later scenes that might be too disconnected otherwise. Diane's turn to religion is never entirely convincing; the reaction of the others as events move to a climax are more plausible. Further events - the cause of the Spin, and changes growing out of Jason's attempts to deal with the Spin - are dealt with well, raising as many questions as they answered, but good questions.
A spare plot thread or two conclude limply, but they're never on center stage; the central dilemma is handled well, and the later details are fascinating enough that you don't dwell on the bad threads for long. Wilson's prose is merely utilitarian, but the ideas stand strongly enough that Spin is a worthwhile read.
Book Review: One of His Better
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Wilson's writing can be checkered. Sometimes he can have great ideas that play out rather miserably, like Darwinia. Other times the writing and characterization come together with a convincing storyline, as in Chronoliths. I am pleased to say that Spin is one of the latter, and indeed exceeds Wilson's efforts in that laudable book.
I bring those books up also because of the intriguing similarities in plot. Darwinia has a vastly technologically superior force or species manipulating humanity on an incredibly large scale. Chronoliths has the manipulation of space through time, all over the planet. And we find the same ideas and themes in Spin. Yet Wilson is to be credited with a completely new storyline and new ideas. (And, unlike Darwinia, with satisfactorily completed ideas).
To say this work is epic is to say too little. Spin encompasses vast stretches of time and space, yet with convincing and intriguing characters. The only negatives I could say about the book is that the brief jumps to the present in certain chapters are both confusing and unengagingly written, and the deep forays into apocalyptic Christianity seem to be a very surface approach, without real understanding of the characters and theology involved. Other than that, this is a book that is difficult to put down and pulls you in constantly, towards a rapidly unfolding intricate mystery of unimagined proportions.
Book Review: Engaging
Summary: 4 Stars
I haven't read genre fiction in a long time, but I had heard good things about this, so I decided that perhaps a change of pace was in order. And I wasn't disappointed. The central scientific conceit is highly compelling. As I read, I found it very difficult to imagine how Wilson was going to resolve everything in a way that didn't feel like a cop-out or an anticlimax. It's easy to set up grand ineffable mysteries; it's quite another to solve them. But I have to hand it to him: he pulls it off with style and grace.
Where the book fails somewhat is in its characterizations. To his credit, Wilson understands that the fact that he's writing genre fiction does not exempt him from the necessity of paying attention to the human element. It's a lesson many science fiction writers haven't learned. So he tries. But he doesn't entirely succeed. The main characters are mostly believable, but not terribly deep. The romance aspect in particular falls flat. We *know* that the narrator cares deeply for the female lead, but only because we are told as much. It's impossible to *feel* it. Wilson just doesn't give us enough to go on.
(and on an unrelated note, I know this isn't a big deal, but I have to vent: HOW cheesy is the part where the protagonist talks his way into a motel by recognizing the musical piece the manager is playing? Right.)
So yeah. I think the breathless Bookmarks Magazine review quoted on this page rather overstates things. This isn't a literary text by any stretch. It was, however, a highly entertaining waystation between more weighty things.