Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
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Book Reviews of Spin
Book Review: Probably Wilson's best to date.
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson, and am completely impressed. Apparently, a lot of people are, as it recently (August, 2006) won the Hugo Award for best novel.
I have now read three of his novels, Darwinia and Chronoliths being the other two, and there is a commonality in that each story begins with an unexplainable world-changing event. After that event, the stories follow a group of people who explore/respond to the event. I am not saying these are boilerplate novels, in fact that is the only thing they hold in common aside from the high-quality writing.
This novel begins with the erection of a membrane, a shield that covers the Earth and slows time on it by a factor of 100 million, meaning that for each year on Earth, 100 million years pass in the rest of the universe.
The story follows 3 childhood friends and the father of two of them as they grow up under the membrane, knowing that is 40 of their years, the Sun will have expanded and the Earth will uninhabitable. These friends respond to the new `world' in different ways. One turns to religion, while another following a more materialistic path and the third, an insatiable quest for knowledge. The father, E.D. is a powerful captain of industry with high-level political connections. Count on him to cause problems.
Robert Charles Wilson is an excellent writer, creating a fast moving plot, good, well defined characters, thoughtful prose and well-researched science fiction.
If you read just one SF novel this year - read this one.
Book Review: thoughtful, Bradbury-esque SF
Summary: 4 Stars
The premise of this book is straight out of the Twilight Zone: someone or something has encased the Earth in a mysterious, black field that causes time on the planet to slow down. For every day of Earth time, centuries pass in the rest of the universe. Stars and the moon disappear, and the sun is replaced by an artificial simulation. No one on Earth knows how or why, though many religious groups believe it to be the beginning of the end times.
Some writers would have launched a conventional whiz-bang action story from here, but Wilson takes a more contemplative, Bradbury-like approach, imagining the changes both large and small that "the Spin" brings to the lives of his main characters and to society at large over twenty years or so. Of course, one of the characters happens to be a brilliant scientist working to solve the mystery before the ever-expanding sun engulfs the solar system, which leads to some interesting plot choices involving the use of evolution as a tool within a sped-up universe.
However, the story is more focused on its characters as they come of age in this strange new reality, with much of the science fiction-y stuff happening offstage, and being recounted by the narrator. Wilson's in no hurry to show us who's ultimately behind the curtain (in fact, if you hadn't noticed, there's a sequel), but the speculation and human drama offer plenty to keep the reader absorbed (even if it does get a soap opera-ish here and there). I think that anyone who appreciates reflective science fiction in the tradition of Bradbury or Clarke will enjoy this book.
Book Review: A turn-back the clock salute to classic science fiction (4.5 stars)
Summary: 4 Stars
Spin is the latest Hugo Award winning novel for best
Sci-fi of the year. Having not yet read any of the
other nominees I can't compare it to the others but
needless to say this is first class science fiction
only surpassed by a handful of other works.
The Amazon summary says all you need to know about the
plot. What works so well here is the characterization
Wilson weaves and the way he intermingles it with the
plot and setting. The story reads like a
autobiography of the protagonist and his scenario of a
future Earth in doubt rings ominously true and
realistic. Tyler Dupree is mostly a passive observer
of the events around him, but his moral credo and
insights provide for an interesting read.
The mixture of political maneuverings and
governmental agencies add intrigue to the story and
Wilson's ideas from a science fiction prospective are
entertaining but not significantly original or
innovative.
Finally the pacing and length of the book are perfect
and the climax satisfactory which seems to be a
problem plaguing recent science fiction. I'm not sure
this book necessarily transcends the science fiction
genre like some past Hugo Winners but it's nonetheless
a very strong piece of work. It's motivated me to
check out some of Wilson's other works.
Bottom Line: An entertaining if not sometime
frightening tale of the modern world in peril. A
great read for sci-fi fans.
Book Review: Good starting concept, but:
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm in the minority here -- although I liked the opening premise (Earth-time proceeding at 1 year to 100,000 years for the universe at large), I felt the book went nowhere special from there, and the ending premise made no sense at all. First, I was not impressed by the character portrayals, which is critical to me. The monster-father was little more than an annoying plot device for his son to react against, and the son had no personality that I could discern. The daughter and the narrator were better drawn, but not by much. Also, I'm tired of SF in which one heroic intellect saves the world. Let's grow up a little, huh? **SPOILER WARNING** Then there's the ending, which is ridiculous in my estimation. Apparently, the sentient galaxy (or some such thing) put Earth into its special time-delayed mini-universe because we were running through Earth's resources too fast, so three billion years was needed to move a gateway to more resources into place. For crying out loud, if that took three billion years, how did they move the time-warp device into place overnight? (Twice, because they warped Mars halfway through the book.) Also, it's bizarre that the underlying problem was that we couldn't control our resource use, but the only solution was to give us a whole bunch more resources. You would think a book with coming-of-age pretensions would work on making us better able to live within our means, rather than wasting three billion years so we could continue being utterly profligate unitl the end of time.Book Review: Happily Ever After
Summary: 2 Stars
If you read the back cover and about 15 pages near the end of this book you are not missing ANY significant part of the plot.
It is a book about how the scientifically illiterate masses cope with numbers such as a billion and seek refuge in a made-up religion when they inevitably fail.
One genius is working on saving the world or even understanding the problem at all while the rest of the world alternates between denial and suicide. The existance of other smart persons is implied but they do not have names.
The writing itself is where Wilson scores but all the characters he writes about are one dimensional at best. There is the genius, the religious one, the doctor.
While there are 3 or 4 ideas that would qualify for a "hard SF" tag, at the end Mr. Wilson waves his magic wand and all problems just go away.
The entire terran von Neumann machine concept should have been a dud from the start because "the others" were quite obviously already in our system and in sufficient force to create sizeable structures. They would have casually assimilated all the new and feeble machines - as they eventually did. Wilson should have read the end of his book before elaborating on how "our" machines build their network.
And finally... a truly gigantic object embeds itself into the earth's crust without upsetting so much as a butterfly, much less causing the tectonic issues one would expect.
And they lived happily ever after.