Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
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Book Reviews of Spin
Book Review: 'Spin' is EXCELLENT
Summary: 5 Stars
Spin
The book has an intriguing premise: one night when the protagonists, (brother and sister twin siblings and their best friend) are 12 and 13 the stars (and the Moon) disappear from the night sky. It turns out that Earth is surrounded by some kind of shroud, called "The Spin" which is affecting the flow of time drastically inside the Spin. Approximately 300 billion years (the amount of time left before Earth's Sun goes nova) will occur outside the Spin within the next 30-plus years of elapsed time on the planet. This one central idea animates the novel, but at its core is the relationship between the three main characters: Tyler Dupree, Diane Lawton and Jason Lawton. Of course, this turns out to be a (straight) love triangle between the three. In addition, however there are numerous other interesting themes and questions: how does society deal with certain impending doom? If you could extend your lifespan through a very painful process which also has a chance of expanding and drastically modifying your consciousness, would you? What do you think is the likely nature of extraterrestrial intelligences? All these ideas are included and weaved throughout Wilson's Spin to thrilling effect.
GRADE: A-
Book Review: Good stuff, but I don't care about the gas station attendant
Summary: 4 Stars
The story of a membrane or cloak that envelops the Earth and warps time, such that time outside the cloak moves very fast. The story is told through the eyes of a doctor, Ty Dupree, and the 'human interest' revolves around his relationship with twins Jason and Diane (in love with Diane, sort of friends with genius Jason). The cloak itself is an interesting device or conundrum. It makes you ask 'Who put it there, and to what end?' It also allows for all kinds of interesting events: it basically means that long distances are annihilated (even if take millions of years to do something outside the cloak, it only takes a few months on Earth; this leads to intriguing developments)
I enjoyed the idea, and was constantly surprised by twists in the plot. The only thing that drags on the story is the minute attention given to trivial events. I guess this description of mundane events was felt necessary in order to build a realistic counterpoint to the sci-fi elements, but I think that it was taken too far. I really don't care about reading normal, retailing level dialogue (like, "How Can I help you sir? I'll have 20 dollars worth of unleaded") This kind of inane, mundane patter doesn't fill the book, but there's enough there to add a bit of drag to the story. Still worth reading, though.
Book Review: If this novel does not stomp your proverbial colon...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best novels I have ever found, and as of yet I have been unable to locate (in person) anyone who does not share this view. A Hugo Award-Winner that keeps on giving.
The story is excellent Sci-fi without dwelling solely on sci-fi; It tells the story of the world, thrown into chaos by beings of unknown origins and insurmountable power. These "Hypothetical beings" create a time discontinuity: Time then moves slower on earth than in the universe at large. Spin is a metaphor for the chaos that ensues "when the stars go out" and the earth must live under a blanket of stellar unknowns. But even with possible destruction on the horizon, humanity goes on from day to day. Unstable with the possibility of the end of the world, life still functions.
Perhaps no two people are more aware of this than Jason and Tyler. Jason, the prodigal son of a wealthy businessman, devotes his life to the question "Why is this being done to us?". Tyler Goes on to become a doctor, experiencing first hand the suffering imposed on and created by a generation with no certain destiny.
This book is a flawless triumph blending Science-Fiction with elements of humanity rarely matched by any in it's field. Well worth your time and money. You won't be disappointed
Book Review: Pretty Engrossing
Summary: 5 Stars
Some books you can tell are inspired by the author starting with a simple "what if". In this case, the "what if" is "what if one night all the stars just disappeared?" . This little seed grew into a pretty big story that covers a lot of territory.
Part of the fun is following along as scientists discover what's going on, so I won't summarize the plot (although you can pick it up elsewhere). The story has 3 central characters, a set of twins (boy/girl pair) and their friend; it begins when they're around 14 years old and follows them for the next 30 or 40 years. Along the way this book hits a LOT of topics: coming of age, parent/child relations, big business, politics, nanotechnology, religion, bio-engineering, planet terraforming, MS (as in, Multiple Sclerosis), time travel, an intergalactic civilization, life in Indonesia under a military state, and the end of the world. One hopes that Wilson took a LONG rest after he finished writing this.
This sounds like it would be a total mishmash but it's not in the least, in fact you won't notice the wide range of topics as such. This is a very readable book and pretty absorbing; I took it to bed the first night and ended up reading until 3am. Fully deserving of the Hugo award for best novel.
Book Review: Life is just a generalized autocatalytic feedback loop
Summary: 5 Stars
Imagine that one October night, maybe next year, the stars go out and the moon disappears. The sun that comes up the next morning is a simulacrum, providing light and warmth, but obviously not the real thing. Panicked investigation shows that the rest of the universe is still there, but Earth is shielded from it -- and that time on our planet had slowed to one-ten-millionth of what it should be. Among other things, this means the sun is (from our perspective) aging far more rapidly than it was and stellar death is only forty or fifty years away. Jason and Diane Lawton, the former a certified genius, are young teenagers when all this happens, as is their friend, Tyler Dupree, son of their housekeeper, and all of their futures will be determined by the Spin, and their lives wrapped tightly around each other by their interrelationships. Why was the Earth locked down? Is there an intelligence behind it, malevolent or otherwise? And how can Earth's people survive the heat-death of their sun? As always in his extremely well-written, humane, and intellectually challenging novels, Wilson is no slacker when it comes to the scientific and technological underpinnings of his story, but he's even better at constructing three-dimensional characters you will care about.