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Spin
Spin is Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo Award-winning masterpiece―a stunning combination of a galactic "what if" and a small-scale, very human story.
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his backyard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.
The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk―a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, a space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside―more than a hundred million years per year on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future.
Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses.
Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans… and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun―and report back on what they find.
Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his backyard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.
The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk―a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, a space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside―more than a hundred million years per year on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future.
Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses.
Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans… and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun―and report back on what they find.
Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.
458 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 2005
About the author
Robert Charles Wilson
84 books1,614 followersI've been writing science fiction professionally since my first novel A Hidden Place was published in 1986. My books include Darwinia, Blind Lake, and the Hugo Award-winning Spin. My newest novel is The Affinities (April 2015).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,826 reviews
June 18, 2019
This. Was. Amazing.
The stars and the moon disappear and nobody knows why and how...
Character driven first contact with aliens with lots of science... yes please!
If you enjoyed Contact by Carl Sagan, you ought to give this book a try.
I don't give 5 stars that often but I'm always excited when I get to do it.
This was unique, unexpected, a bit of a slow burn but I couldn't put it down.
A new favorite book, I absolutely recommend it!
The stars and the moon disappear and nobody knows why and how...
Character driven first contact with aliens with lots of science... yes please!
If you enjoyed Contact by Carl Sagan, you ought to give this book a try.
I don't give 5 stars that often but I'm always excited when I get to do it.
This was unique, unexpected, a bit of a slow burn but I couldn't put it down.
A new favorite book, I absolutely recommend it!
October 1, 2015
Spin is a Hugo award winner that wonders what would happen if the earth were forced to remain as it is while the universe around us aged at approximately 100 million years per earth year. as far as scifi concepts go, it is a fairly mind-boggling one. to compound matters further, scientists quickly realize that as the universe ages, the earth's chance for utter destruction increases - when and if the shield around the earth is eventually lifted. and that is what creates the human drama within Spin. the reader is given two big things to chew on: the more intellectual mystery of who is behind the shield and what is its purpose... and the more emotional drama of seeing how End Times will impact all of us silly humans. Spin succeeds in accomplishing its first goal; i found it to be less successful in reaching the second.
the first goal is expertly achieved. Spin is in many ways 'pure science fiction'... it is not fantasy or historical fiction or metaphysical metaphor gussied up with scifi trappings. it takes a genuinely speculative approach to exploring the ramifications of this strange shield: what does it mean, what is its purpose, how does it impact us, how does it change us? everything connected to this central concept succeeds admirably. i really don't want to say much more on this, because part of the pleasure for me was finding out what was to come next - seeing the mystery explored, and open up into new mysteries. the one thing i will add was a plot turn that came out of the blue for me... how the earth could manipulate its new-found stasis. specifically, how the earth could terraform and then inhabit mars. one earth year = one hundered million regular years... terraforming & colonization that can take place within a few years! this was a really exciting development; even more thrilling was discovering all about this new martian world.
for me, the second goal had more mixed results. i'll try to sum it up briefly: the earth goes bonkers. governments get even more paranoid, wars erupt, lawlessness is everywhere (which leads to a truly ironic ending for one particular character), suicides & murders increase, and religious feelings skyrocket. and so Spin is not just the tale of a fascinating scifi concept, but one about the human drama of What Is The Right Path To Take? when great and terrible things happen, how do we react, and what do our reactions say about us? what do we do when confronted with a state of absolute and infinite potentiality?
and so Spin is both a novel of grand ideas, staggering possibilities, elaborate ways to wonder why and how and when and what if... and it is also a very intimate, small-scale chamber piece featuring three major characters and a handful of sharply dilineated supporting characters. each character has their own way of approaching these grand ideas and staggering possibilities.
rather predictably, the second goal becomes a depressingly either/or type situation, with two of the major characters (the Scientist and the Zealot) embodying opposite ends of the spectrum and our protagonist landing somewhere (but not quite) in the middle. despite my complaints, Wilson's writing does not actually disappoint. he is not a pedantic author and his characters are sympathetically and realistically conceived and explored. they are alive. his narrative is not custom-built as a vehicle to express a certain dialectic and so i didn't feel as if the story was manipulated to prove certain points. nonetheless, i found this aspect of the novel to be rather tedious.
i suppose these kinds of binary arguments just automatically aggravate me. what is up with humans always having to draw lines in the sand, ignoring the basic complexity of life, being unable to see multiple sides and multiple levels? why is it so hard to live with facts that any true adult knows to be truth: the world is a complicated place, humans are a complicated species, each individual encompasses many different things. we are a continuum - not a single, fixed point. right? perhaps i am an idealist (ha! sure). i feel these truths are self-evident... but as Spin and, oh, the entirety of human history attests, the species homo sapien usually chooses to reject such complexity. and so this sad spinning piece of rock and all of its denizens spins on.
February 16, 2011
(note - satirical spoiler alerts ahoy)
Robert Charles Wilson appears to be paid by the word - how else to account for such passages, and they are legion, as this :
The day I left Perihelion the support staff summoned me into one of the now seldom-used boardrooms for a farewell party, where I was given the kind of gifts appropriate to yet another departure from a dwindling workforce : a miniature cactus in a terracotta pot, a coffee mug with my name on it, a pewter tie pin in the shape of a caduceus.
Yeah right so the world is about to end and there are millenial cults trashing the place which the woman he loves has married into one of them and his friend the genius has a grim disease and there's this stuff about a man from Mars but let's suspend all that and get the pot, the mug and the tiepin down, don't want to let that stuff go by unrecorded. Yeah they're little human touches amongst the catastrophes but let me tell you, Robert Charles Wilson, the pot, the mug and the tiepin are boring and if I may say so, so is your protagonist, a guy you'd rather jab needles into your sinuses than share a railway journey with, Doctor Humourless Dullard should be his name, not Tyler Dupree, which sounds like a guy who made two blues records for Paramount in 1928, but anyway, I'm straying from the point - what was the point? Oh yeah, a 450 page Hugo Award winning novel about the usual stuff - The End Of Life As we Know It. For most of the 450 pages the world's going to end, and by page 350 as I read I was thinking "come on, end! End now! End! Put us out of our misery!" but the world kept not ending and by page 390 this became distressing. Maybe I'm a bad person. So maybe if there has to be an Apocalypse we'd all vote for the kind where you have time to buy each other terracotta tie pins. It's just that it's more exciting reading about the other kind.
Sings with guitar accompaniment :
"I could've bought you a tiepin, didn't mean to be unkind
But tiepins were the last thing on my mind"
Two and a half stars.
*
Two bad tempered thoughts - the final Big Idea in Spin can also be found in Clifford Simak's lovely 1959 novella called the Big Front Yard. That one won the Hugo in 1959. And - there's a quote on the front cover of Spin which must be the worst marketing quote ever. It says "The best science fiction novel of the year so far" - Rocky Mountain News. So far? How do we know whether that review was in the February issue and they were expecting much better stuff next month?
Robert Charles Wilson appears to be paid by the word - how else to account for such passages, and they are legion, as this :
The day I left Perihelion the support staff summoned me into one of the now seldom-used boardrooms for a farewell party, where I was given the kind of gifts appropriate to yet another departure from a dwindling workforce : a miniature cactus in a terracotta pot, a coffee mug with my name on it, a pewter tie pin in the shape of a caduceus.
Yeah right so the world is about to end and there are millenial cults trashing the place which the woman he loves has married into one of them and his friend the genius has a grim disease and there's this stuff about a man from Mars but let's suspend all that and get the pot, the mug and the tiepin down, don't want to let that stuff go by unrecorded. Yeah they're little human touches amongst the catastrophes but let me tell you, Robert Charles Wilson, the pot, the mug and the tiepin are boring and if I may say so, so is your protagonist, a guy you'd rather jab needles into your sinuses than share a railway journey with, Doctor Humourless Dullard should be his name, not Tyler Dupree, which sounds like a guy who made two blues records for Paramount in 1928, but anyway, I'm straying from the point - what was the point? Oh yeah, a 450 page Hugo Award winning novel about the usual stuff - The End Of Life As we Know It. For most of the 450 pages the world's going to end, and by page 350 as I read I was thinking "come on, end! End now! End! Put us out of our misery!" but the world kept not ending and by page 390 this became distressing. Maybe I'm a bad person. So maybe if there has to be an Apocalypse we'd all vote for the kind where you have time to buy each other terracotta tie pins. It's just that it's more exciting reading about the other kind.
Sings with guitar accompaniment :
"I could've bought you a tiepin, didn't mean to be unkind
But tiepins were the last thing on my mind"
Two and a half stars.
*
Two bad tempered thoughts - the final Big Idea in Spin can also be found in Clifford Simak's lovely 1959 novella called the Big Front Yard. That one won the Hugo in 1959. And - there's a quote on the front cover of Spin which must be the worst marketing quote ever. It says "The best science fiction novel of the year so far" - Rocky Mountain News. So far? How do we know whether that review was in the February issue and they were expecting much better stuff next month?
February 4, 2014
How the FUCK did this book win a Hugo?
It's not hard to explain, I suppose: insert infodumps of "hard" sf every few pages, focus the book on a bland every-man who pines for his untouchable childhood sweetheart, add a couple monologues about how humanity just wants to understand the universe but oh god it's so vast, and boom, a paint-by-the-numbers Hugo winner. It was SO FUCKING MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING.
Putting aside the main character, who has the internal life of a turnip and possibly even less of an external life (seriously all he does is follow Jason and Diane around and listen to their infodumps), the plot is nonexistent. Here's the premise: when Tyler and his bffs Jason and Diane are children, a membrane encloses the earth. A certain amount of sunlight is allowed through, but otherwise our planet is enclosed into almost cryogenic stasis, as one hundred million years pass outside the membrane and only one year within it. On the one hand, this means that within a single human lifetime, the sun will die. On the other hand, it means that when humans can remotely accomplish things in outer space we'd never dream of otherwise, like terraforming Mars in what seems to us like a single day. Cool! Unfortunately, this awesome astro stuff takes second seat to the interminable explanations of the incredibly obvious. Not a single chapter goes by without someone (er, let me rephrase--someone male. There are three supporting female characters: one is a religious nut, one says very little, and one is a drunk whose alcoholism is mentioned LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME she is mentioned and who seems to exist solely so Tyler will seem well-informed in comparison. Absolutely none of these women have much in the way of dialog or personality, and none of them have agency in the plot.) telling another character something obvious. Here's an example:
WOW. Jason is the only person to have ever realized we might run out of oil. This is an example of a big problem with this book: the only way Jason and Tyler are able to be smart is by writing everyone around them as ignoramuses. At another point, Tyler goes off on his hot young fuck-buddy because she dismisses Spin as "We're in a sort of cosmic baggie and the universe is spinning out of control, yada yada yada." This pretty accurate summary apparently warrants a two-page diatribe wherein Tyler decries the common public's astronomical ignorance. Jason or Tyler explains the idea that time passes differently inside and outside the membrane surrounding the earth like fifteen times in this book. Thanks, but I got it the first time; it's not that complex an idea. Wilson has an annoying tendency to try to create tension by cutting people off in the middle of exposition, just when they're poised to reveal something big. Aside from the clear artificiality of the device, the reveals are never actually that surprising.
Sorry for all the capslock. This book was a disappointment.
It's not hard to explain, I suppose: insert infodumps of "hard" sf every few pages, focus the book on a bland every-man who pines for his untouchable childhood sweetheart, add a couple monologues about how humanity just wants to understand the universe but oh god it's so vast, and boom, a paint-by-the-numbers Hugo winner. It was SO FUCKING MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING.
Putting aside the main character, who has the internal life of a turnip and possibly even less of an external life (seriously all he does is follow Jason and Diane around and listen to their infodumps), the plot is nonexistent. Here's the premise: when Tyler and his bffs Jason and Diane are children, a membrane encloses the earth. A certain amount of sunlight is allowed through, but otherwise our planet is enclosed into almost cryogenic stasis, as one hundred million years pass outside the membrane and only one year within it. On the one hand, this means that within a single human lifetime, the sun will die. On the other hand, it means that when humans can remotely accomplish things in outer space we'd never dream of otherwise, like terraforming Mars in what seems to us like a single day. Cool! Unfortunately, this awesome astro stuff takes second seat to the interminable explanations of the incredibly obvious. Not a single chapter goes by without someone (er, let me rephrase--someone male. There are three supporting female characters: one is a religious nut, one says very little, and one is a drunk whose alcoholism is mentioned LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME she is mentioned and who seems to exist solely so Tyler will seem well-informed in comparison. Absolutely none of these women have much in the way of dialog or personality, and none of them have agency in the plot.) telling another character something obvious. Here's an example:
She [Jason's mom, a physician who is now an alcoholic, oh hey, did I mention she drinks? She drinks. She's always drinking!] looked genuinely frightened. "Is any of this true, Jason?"
"Most all of it," Jason said calmly.
"Are we really on the brink of disaster?"
"We've been on the brink of disaster since the stars went out."
"I mean about oil and all that. If the Spin hadn't happened, we'd all be starving?"
"People are starving. They're starving because we can't support seven billion people in North American-style prosperity without strip-mining the planet."
WOW. Jason is the only person to have ever realized we might run out of oil. This is an example of a big problem with this book: the only way Jason and Tyler are able to be smart is by writing everyone around them as ignoramuses. At another point, Tyler goes off on his hot young fuck-buddy because she dismisses Spin as "We're in a sort of cosmic baggie and the universe is spinning out of control, yada yada yada." This pretty accurate summary apparently warrants a two-page diatribe wherein Tyler decries the common public's astronomical ignorance. Jason or Tyler explains the idea that time passes differently inside and outside the membrane surrounding the earth like fifteen times in this book. Thanks, but I got it the first time; it's not that complex an idea. Wilson has an annoying tendency to try to create tension by cutting people off in the middle of exposition, just when they're poised to reveal something big. Aside from the clear artificiality of the device, the reveals are never actually that surprising.
Sorry for all the capslock. This book was a disappointment.
October 26, 2007
This is one of those rare science fiction books that lets you wonder and imagine and forget that it's science fiction at all. Many sci-fi authors lean too heavily on the science and speculation and not enough on the fiction, creating interesting premises but characters that are two dimensional. Wilson does not have that problem here. His characters are fully fleshed, flawed and realistic and it is these characters that move Spin along so well.
This is not to say that this book lacks in science and its implications. Spin starts with the main characters star-gazing as they whitness the night sky and all of it's stars vanish, due to a planet encompasing barrier that slows down time on the earth as eons pass outside. So much time passes outside the barrier that the sun itself grows old. This opens all kinds of possibilities and you wonder at first how Wilson will be able to reasonably explain a phenomenon on such a grand scope. Smartly, Wilson deals with the global implications of this as much as the science. He paints an eerie picture of the planet as it would be shrouded under something so large and unknown. Religions are formed around this phenomenon as well as economic disaster. Tyler, our main POV and the two other main characters live through these events and Wilson does a good job of making you feel as if you were actually there. These are characters you care about, which makes their ordeals feel all too real.
This is why I would recommend this book to anyone, to fans of sci-fi or not. There is plenty here for the sci-fi junky as well as fans of character fiction. In the end, Wilson does a good job of wrapping up loose ends and doesn't leave you unfulfilled. His explanations are smart and make sense, though they may leave some dissapointed that were hoping for something more conventional. Take from it what you will, this is great science fiction reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke and I'll count it among my favtorite sci-fi along with Dune and Hyperion.
This is not to say that this book lacks in science and its implications. Spin starts with the main characters star-gazing as they whitness the night sky and all of it's stars vanish, due to a planet encompasing barrier that slows down time on the earth as eons pass outside. So much time passes outside the barrier that the sun itself grows old. This opens all kinds of possibilities and you wonder at first how Wilson will be able to reasonably explain a phenomenon on such a grand scope. Smartly, Wilson deals with the global implications of this as much as the science. He paints an eerie picture of the planet as it would be shrouded under something so large and unknown. Religions are formed around this phenomenon as well as economic disaster. Tyler, our main POV and the two other main characters live through these events and Wilson does a good job of making you feel as if you were actually there. These are characters you care about, which makes their ordeals feel all too real.
This is why I would recommend this book to anyone, to fans of sci-fi or not. There is plenty here for the sci-fi junky as well as fans of character fiction. In the end, Wilson does a good job of wrapping up loose ends and doesn't leave you unfulfilled. His explanations are smart and make sense, though they may leave some dissapointed that were hoping for something more conventional. Take from it what you will, this is great science fiction reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke and I'll count it among my favtorite sci-fi along with Dune and Hyperion.
April 6, 2013
I've always loved star gazing. Perhaps it was Greek mythology that hooked me; I could look up and find the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and later transform them into Ursa Major and Minor. Cassiopeia would appear late in the summer, arms outstretched on her throne. Orion was easy to pick out, and once I found him, I could find the Pleiades--the seven sisters--grouped together running away. Orion held a special spot in my heart, being one of the few strong enough to brave the Los Angeles skies when I was away at school. When I took astrophysics and learned about spiral galaxies, white dwarfs, and black holes, my imagination was captured by the sky in a different way.
It's clear why Spin won a Hugo. Stars. Inventive science. Family expectations. Coming of age. Engineering evolution. Human-descended Martians. Mysterious aliens.
For me, Spin was a slow-moving, thoughtful book, the kind that doesn't quite keep you reading from excitement, but from simple human curiousity and interest. Told from the viewpoint of Tyler Dupree, a well developed, high-achiever Everyman, the kind of character most people reading would likely identify with; shades of inadequacy and affection are mixed up in his friendship with Diane and Jason, the twins living in the Big House. One night when they are teens, the stars go out. Blink--no more stars. Thankfully, the sun still rises. From there, their lives change forever; in subtle fashion for Diane and Tyler, and more directly with Jason, who wholeheartedly pursues the mystery. We learn about the mystery as Tyler does, and I appreciate the deliberate way it is explored. The science was explained enough to catch interest, and even more fascinating questions are raised when the temporal ramifications of the shield become clear.
Eventually, Spin perhaps attempts to achieve too much; as the trio grows older, the looming effects of the phenomenon become more clear, and they grapple with larger political and social issues that aren't always well explained. I found myself most interested when Tyler and Jason's professional lives intersected, and more of the Spin was explored. The story is narrated from Tyler's viewpoint, and is broken into two timelines, sometimes well, sometimes more awkwardly. At times when it becomes a little like a story based on a thought experiment, it's saved by the thoughtful and well-rounded development of the characters. I have a feeling it's the sort of story that I would appreciate even more after another read or two, so I'm glad it's joined my shelves.
Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2012/1...
It's clear why Spin won a Hugo. Stars. Inventive science. Family expectations. Coming of age. Engineering evolution. Human-descended Martians. Mysterious aliens.
For me, Spin was a slow-moving, thoughtful book, the kind that doesn't quite keep you reading from excitement, but from simple human curiousity and interest. Told from the viewpoint of Tyler Dupree, a well developed, high-achiever Everyman, the kind of character most people reading would likely identify with; shades of inadequacy and affection are mixed up in his friendship with Diane and Jason, the twins living in the Big House. One night when they are teens, the stars go out. Blink--no more stars. Thankfully, the sun still rises. From there, their lives change forever; in subtle fashion for Diane and Tyler, and more directly with Jason, who wholeheartedly pursues the mystery. We learn about the mystery as Tyler does, and I appreciate the deliberate way it is explored. The science was explained enough to catch interest, and even more fascinating questions are raised when the temporal ramifications of the shield become clear.
Eventually, Spin perhaps attempts to achieve too much; as the trio grows older, the looming effects of the phenomenon become more clear, and they grapple with larger political and social issues that aren't always well explained. I found myself most interested when Tyler and Jason's professional lives intersected, and more of the Spin was explored. The story is narrated from Tyler's viewpoint, and is broken into two timelines, sometimes well, sometimes more awkwardly. At times when it becomes a little like a story based on a thought experiment, it's saved by the thoughtful and well-rounded development of the characters. I have a feeling it's the sort of story that I would appreciate even more after another read or two, so I'm glad it's joined my shelves.
Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2012/1...
June 16, 2011
Spin was my third exposure to Robert Charles Wilson, a writer who has yet to disappoint me. He is not a "hard" sci-fi writer. Instead, the author writes about regular people and their ways of coping with major changes in their lives and environments. Spin is a very compelling story with believable, yet not overwhelming, scientific details and realistic characters. This is the type of SF novel that I would not hesitate to recommend to readers of high-quality, literary fiction who may want to explore the genre.
November 22, 2010
Well, the PREMISE of this book is amazing. The science and concept are just sooo interesting, an intelligent being puts a "bubble' around earth, so that time is super slow INSIDE, but 3 or 4 years passes every second OUTSIDE the bubble, in space?! I was so enamored of that world-building, until the lack of interest in the characters made me peter out about 2/3 in. I dunno, lots of people enjoyed this from the reviews, and it won a Hugo, so I guess I'm a bit crazy. Definitely concept-interesting, but in practice, didn't hook me as much as I wanted. Still great SF concept!
April 19, 2015
This was some of the best science fiction I've read in years. Heck, it was one of the best books I've read in years.
This is the sort of book that I babble about. It's hard to write down what's good about it because everything about it is good. Everything about it is amazing, really, so there's no good starting place. It all just comes out in a rush of Plot/Big Ideas/writing style/characters/character relationships/tragedy/humor/everything.
If you've ever enjoyed a sci-fi book, read it. If you think you might one day enjoy a sci-fi book, read it. It's one of the best books I've ever read. On my personal list, I can unashamedly rank it right up next to books by Dickens.
Five stars isn't a high enough rating and I like the skills to really express how much I loved this book. So just assume that I really, really, really loved it.
It's on my list to read again next year. I can't wait to see how it ages after I've spent a year thinking about it. I'm really looking forward to the re-read.
Which is probably the highest praise I can give.
This is the sort of book that I babble about. It's hard to write down what's good about it because everything about it is good. Everything about it is amazing, really, so there's no good starting place. It all just comes out in a rush of Plot/Big Ideas/writing style/characters/character relationships/tragedy/humor/everything.
If you've ever enjoyed a sci-fi book, read it. If you think you might one day enjoy a sci-fi book, read it. It's one of the best books I've ever read. On my personal list, I can unashamedly rank it right up next to books by Dickens.
Five stars isn't a high enough rating and I like the skills to really express how much I loved this book. So just assume that I really, really, really loved it.
It's on my list to read again next year. I can't wait to see how it ages after I've spent a year thinking about it. I'm really looking forward to the re-read.
Which is probably the highest praise I can give.
July 4, 2019
Al comienzo de ’Spin’, uno de los personajes está inyectando una droga a otro, y mediante una sucinta descripción, Wilson nos indica que no nos encontramos en la Tierra que conocemos normalmente. A partir de aquí, haciendo uso de flashbacks iremos sabiendo de las vicisitudes por las que han ido pasando tanto los protagonistas como su entorno. Wilson es fiel a sí mismo, y como en el resto de su obra, parte de un fenómeno extraño y extraordinario que trastoca la vida de las personas. Me resisto a comentar cuál es este hecho, aunque leyendo cualquier sinopsis de la novela, se sabe enseguida.
Los personajes más importantes de la historia son tres: los gemelos Jason y Diane, y el amigo de ambos, Tyler, verdadero protagonista de la novela, ya que toda la trama la conocemos a través de su punto de vista. Wilson sabe transmitirnos perfectamente el sentir de los personajes, sus sentimientos y pensamientos. De igual manera, Wilson no olvida la parte científica y tecnológica, y nos va desvelando las investigaciones y descubrimientos debidos al llamado Spin, reflexionando sobre sus implicaciones a todos los niveles, políticos, religiosos y personales.
’Spin’ es una muy buena novela de ciencia ficción hard ligera, que mezcla a la perfección la ciencia con las relaciones personales de los protagonistas, todo ello narrado de manera muy fácil por Wilson. El único pero que se le puede poner, es que le sobran algunas páginas. Decir también que ’Spin’ forma parte de una trilogía, pero que la novela se cierra satisfactoriamente.
Los personajes más importantes de la historia son tres: los gemelos Jason y Diane, y el amigo de ambos, Tyler, verdadero protagonista de la novela, ya que toda la trama la conocemos a través de su punto de vista. Wilson sabe transmitirnos perfectamente el sentir de los personajes, sus sentimientos y pensamientos. De igual manera, Wilson no olvida la parte científica y tecnológica, y nos va desvelando las investigaciones y descubrimientos debidos al llamado Spin, reflexionando sobre sus implicaciones a todos los niveles, políticos, religiosos y personales.
’Spin’ es una muy buena novela de ciencia ficción hard ligera, que mezcla a la perfección la ciencia con las relaciones personales de los protagonistas, todo ello narrado de manera muy fácil por Wilson. El único pero que se le puede poner, es que le sobran algunas páginas. Decir también que ’Spin’ forma parte de una trilogía, pero que la novela se cierra satisfactoriamente.
May 23, 2010
One night, the stars go out. The earth has been shielded, and it's soon discovered that time is passing much more rapidly outside the barrier. This means the death of the sun (and the end of the world) is fast approaching. The human race reacts with denial, hedonism, religiosity, despair, and clever scientific schemes which may offer some hope.
Loved the main idea but got tired of the slow pace, language, and characters and eventually skipped through to see how the story would play out.
Everything in the book was so overly dramatic; small mysteries and events are built up almost as much as the major stuff. There was an almost constant sense of foreboding about everything which just got wearing and felt out of balance. As a result, some things that should have been more dramatic (like the things involving the actual baddies in the book) just fell really flat. And I got really tired of the main character's obsession with his childhood crush. All the characters just seemed stagnant, actually.
(Incidentally, the book jacket sums up pretty much all of the scientific developments that occur, while the book plows along with the smaller scale effects on the main characters. If you just want the sci-fi plot, read the cover.)
Great setup, not much done with it. Could easily have been condensed into a much better book or short story.
Loved the main idea but got tired of the slow pace, language, and characters and eventually skipped through to see how the story would play out.
Everything in the book was so overly dramatic; small mysteries and events are built up almost as much as the major stuff. There was an almost constant sense of foreboding about everything which just got wearing and felt out of balance. As a result, some things that should have been more dramatic (like the things involving the actual baddies in the book) just fell really flat. And I got really tired of the main character's obsession with his childhood crush. All the characters just seemed stagnant, actually.
(Incidentally, the book jacket sums up pretty much all of the scientific developments that occur, while the book plows along with the smaller scale effects on the main characters. If you just want the sci-fi plot, read the cover.)
Great setup, not much done with it. Could easily have been condensed into a much better book or short story.
January 7, 2014
Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my HUGO WINNERS list.
This is the reading list that follows the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I loved reading the Locus Sci-Fi Award winners so I'm going to crack on with the Hugo winners next (but only the post-1980 winners, I'll follow up with pre-1980 another time).
Spin was my first meeting with Robert Charles Wilson and I came away impressed and disappointed in equal measure.
Glowing reviews from Goodreads members had raised the bar of expectation... too far.
Let’s start with the good: the premise is excellent, a really original and compelling idea. What would happen if one night the stars just went out? Some hypothetical alien race (or God?) has wrapped the Earth in a bubble, a membrane – an event, christened by us Earthlings as the Spin. The membrane is sophisticated, it allows sunlight through to enable our biosphere to survive and it allows us to send probes, etc, out to investigate its nature. But it doesn’t take long to realise that the bubble is messing with time – it’s flowing a lot faster outside the bubble than inside... like a million times faster.
Some hypothetical alien race (or God?) has put Earth on slow-mo, like a museum exhibit, while the universe grows old around it.
I think that’s an amazing idea! It throws up so many questions and I’ve never read anything like it before. So from pure premise, we’re at a 5-star start.
So next we need our human lens on this story – if it was put to me, I’d have probably suggested multiple protagonists spread around key countries, to give a sense of the varied reactions and consequences to this global predicament, with a matter-of-fact tone, in the style of Robinson’s Mars trilogy.
Wilson prefers to keep the lens a little tighter – he focuses on one family, specifically twin boy-girl siblings who are teenagers at the time of the Spin. The boy, Jason is a physics genius destined for great things – and their father is a big player in the American aerospace industry. So Jason grows up as one of the key thinkers in the human reaction, a leader in the fight. His sister, Diane, takes the opposite path – throwing herself into the religious reaction, apocalypse is coming, etc. Good idea, very interesting to see the different stages of that journey. Again, if we’re talking concepts, with an editor hat on – so far, so good – I can see this all working.
And then... and then Wilson takes an additional step which I didn’t understand and didn’t like. He brings in an additional character as the narrator. Dr Tyler Dupree. Tyler is the son of Jason and Dianne’s housekeeper. He lives in the cottage on the corner of their estate. He’s their friend as they grow-up. He’s a decent, smart, everyman. He’s been placed in the story to give readers an easy ride, to give them someone they can relate to and experience this madcap world with. He’s supposed to ground the story. Where Jason and Dianne represent the extremes, Tyler is just a normal guy trying to make the best out of things and muddle along.
I hated Tyler. No, wait, hate is too strong a word. I was bored by Tyler. I pitied Tyler. Tyler is nothing to this story... Jason is a world changer, and Tyler is his tag-along buddy. Dianne is an emotional rollercoaster and Tyler is her childhood sweetheart. Tyler himself is an emotional vacuum, paralysed by circumstances outside of his control playing it safe every step of the way.
For me, this story would have been far more dramatic, tense, emotional, vivid, gripping – all the good things I look for in a story – without Tyler. Why couldn’t we just follow Jason and Dianne first-hand, rather than hearing a reduced and diluted version of their tales through wet-rag Tyler? We could have been seeing the life that inspired Jason’s schemes (and those schemes are brilliant!) rather than the every day tedium that is Tyler.
I’m going to quote the book and Paul’s review here – because he nailed it:
The day I left Perihelion the support staff summoned me into one of the now seldom-used boardrooms for a farewell party, where I was given the kind of gifts appropriate to yet another departure from a dwindling workforce : a miniature cactus in a terracotta pot, a coffee mug with my name on it, a pewter tie pin in the shape of a caduceus.So I’m not alone with my gripe here, even if I’m swimming against the tide. A lot of people found the Tyler-device to be stonking success – it helped non-sci-fi geeks to get a handle on this very human, very accessible story. I can see that – I can – but I’m not that reader. I am the sci-fi-geek, and I found it unnecessary and irritating. Far too much drivel amidst the gems for anything more than a three-star rating, and far too many gems amongst the drivel for anything less.
Yeah right so the world is about to end and there are millenial cults trashing the place which the woman he loves has married into one of them and his friend the genius has a grim disease and there's this stuff about a man from Mars but let's suspend all that and get the pot, the mug and the tiepin down, don't want to let that stuff go by unrecorded. Yeah they're little human touches amongst the catastrophes but let me tell you, Robert Charles Wilson, the pot, the mug and the tiepin are boring and if I may say so, so is your protagonist, a guy you'd rather jab needles into your sinuses than share a railway journey with, Doctor Humourless Dullard should be his name, not Tyler Dupree, which sounds like a guy who made two blues records for Paramount in 1928, but anyway, I'm straying from the point - what was the point?
After this I read: A Squash and a Squeeze
June 10, 2014
One flavor of sci-fi that I particular enjoy is when the story is set in the present day. Galaxy spanning future worlds are great, but the sort of scenario where we start off with the present day world we are living in and weirdness ensue is often a lot of fun. It also has the advantage of being immediately accessible (usually) as there are less world building and neologism to familiarize with. Some good examples of such sf books would be The Midwich Cuckoos, Childhood's End, The War of the Worlds, and
Way Station
Spin is another fine example of this type of science fiction. While it is quite easy to get into it is not short on “sensawonder” and there is some very interesting world building (in a very literal sense) later on in the book. I tend to avoid writing synopses (lazy you know) but sometime it is an unavoidable integral part of the review. The basic premise in a nutshell is aliens put a black bag over the Earth inside which time runs much slower than outside the bag. Of course this is a very rough simplification because the bag is not a bag as such, it is some kind of cosmic membrane encasement, which comes with an artificial sun. The implication of this situation is quite intriguing as time whizzes by outside this encasement our Sun will evolve into a red giant in a few billion years and its gargantuan size will eventually render poor old Earth uninhabitable. The process takes a few billion years but that only gives Earth a few years as we are in a slow time environment while time speed by outside. I will not go into the why and wherefore of it of course.
With that premise you would expect some kind of hard sf where the story is paramount and the individual characters merely facilitate to drive the plot. Surprisingly this is not the case at all. Wilson puts equal emphasis on developing his characters as he does the epic sci-fi concept. There is a lot of human melodrama which verges on soap operatic at times. What with the unrequited love of the main protagonist and the story of childhood friendship that reminds me of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a little.
I don’t want to go into any more details as they are well worth discovering for yourself. Beside the ingenious story and the characterization the book is also very well written. I entirely agree with what Jo Walton wrote in her review:
"This is the kind of book that makes me feel excited by science fiction all over again. It makes me want to jump up and down and say “Read it, read it, read it!” to all my friends."
Never a truer word spoken.
Edit June 10, 2014: Spin is being adapted for a TV series.
Way Station
Spin is another fine example of this type of science fiction. While it is quite easy to get into it is not short on “sensawonder” and there is some very interesting world building (in a very literal sense) later on in the book. I tend to avoid writing synopses (lazy you know) but sometime it is an unavoidable integral part of the review. The basic premise in a nutshell is aliens put a black bag over the Earth inside which time runs much slower than outside the bag. Of course this is a very rough simplification because the bag is not a bag as such, it is some kind of cosmic membrane encasement, which comes with an artificial sun. The implication of this situation is quite intriguing as time whizzes by outside this encasement our Sun will evolve into a red giant in a few billion years and its gargantuan size will eventually render poor old Earth uninhabitable. The process takes a few billion years but that only gives Earth a few years as we are in a slow time environment while time speed by outside. I will not go into the why and wherefore of it of course.
With that premise you would expect some kind of hard sf where the story is paramount and the individual characters merely facilitate to drive the plot. Surprisingly this is not the case at all. Wilson puts equal emphasis on developing his characters as he does the epic sci-fi concept. There is a lot of human melodrama which verges on soap operatic at times. What with the unrequited love of the main protagonist and the story of childhood friendship that reminds me of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a little.
I don’t want to go into any more details as they are well worth discovering for yourself. Beside the ingenious story and the characterization the book is also very well written. I entirely agree with what Jo Walton wrote in her review:
"This is the kind of book that makes me feel excited by science fiction all over again. It makes me want to jump up and down and say “Read it, read it, read it!” to all my friends."
Never a truer word spoken.
Edit June 10, 2014: Spin is being adapted for a TV series.
October 23, 2014
3.5 rounded up because the ideas were so big & beautiful. It truly was a work of art, but it felt both too long & too short. It also never really grabbed me. The characters seemed real enough, but none of them ever really grabbed me & they should have. They were complex & strong enough in so many ways, but I never really cared if they lived or died.
The scope of the plot was audacious & yet pulled off very well. I've been reading SF for 40 years & it wowed me. It had everything from politics & religion to aliens & terraforming. It was apocalyptic & hopeful, too. Very, very cool & written in a very easy to read style. At times the debating got a little out of hand, but that was easy enough to skim over.
Well worth reading.
The scope of the plot was audacious & yet pulled off very well. I've been reading SF for 40 years & it wowed me. It had everything from politics & religion to aliens & terraforming. It was apocalyptic & hopeful, too. Very, very cool & written in a very easy to read style. At times the debating got a little out of hand, but that was easy enough to skim over.
Well worth reading.
November 5, 2017
Even if RCW’s works aren’t overflowed with optimism, this one was really depressing. It gave me such a feeling of hopelessness, more so because of the first person narration. Tyler Dupree was a child when the stars in the sky vanished on an October evening. He and his only friends, the twins Jason and Diane, watched the event which changed their lives forever.
The Earth was surrounded by a sort of membrane, called the Spin, outside of which times fly by very differently: “One terrestrial second equals 3.17 years Spin time.” Sun is expanding and without the Spin, the Earth will soon be gone.
What follows we get to see through Tyler’s blasé eyes – he’s not however unconcerned, he just accepts the new surrounding reality and adjusts by it. Not the case with his friends though: Jason’s only purpose in life became the study of the Spin and the ones behind it and Diane, terrified by it, is ‘hiding’ behind a new religion. He became the steady pillar for the two, the balancing link between a world thrown into chaos and their own feelings.
As his other novels, this one is not action, but character driven. RCW follows human behavior facing a possible extinction. And it’s not a pleasant experience, mostly because he has a gift of making the experience so real. But it was an astonishing one; the scale of it is mind blowing. There were some chapters too dragged and Tyler’s submission was hard to swallow at times, but is all part of the characters development.
If not for the ending, I would have taken a break until the second part, because this one kind of drained me. But a sparkle of hope at the end and curiosity made me to keep going.
The Earth was surrounded by a sort of membrane, called the Spin, outside of which times fly by very differently: “One terrestrial second equals 3.17 years Spin time.” Sun is expanding and without the Spin, the Earth will soon be gone.
What follows we get to see through Tyler’s blasé eyes – he’s not however unconcerned, he just accepts the new surrounding reality and adjusts by it. Not the case with his friends though: Jason’s only purpose in life became the study of the Spin and the ones behind it and Diane, terrified by it, is ‘hiding’ behind a new religion. He became the steady pillar for the two, the balancing link between a world thrown into chaos and their own feelings.
As his other novels, this one is not action, but character driven. RCW follows human behavior facing a possible extinction. And it’s not a pleasant experience, mostly because he has a gift of making the experience so real. But it was an astonishing one; the scale of it is mind blowing. There were some chapters too dragged and Tyler’s submission was hard to swallow at times, but is all part of the characters development.
If not for the ending, I would have taken a break until the second part, because this one kind of drained me. But a sparkle of hope at the end and curiosity made me to keep going.
June 6, 2014
What knocked me out about this book was not the science half of the story, which was great, but the depth of the characters Wilson creates, and varied situations that occur and the breadth of the possible responses people have to a literally incomprehensible change in the way the world works.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
February 4, 2020
Just finished it and what a positive surprise! I'm still contemplating if I should round the 4.5 rating up or down (I didn't want to give so many 5 stars this year, so for the time being I go for 4). More often than not the award winners are not exactly to my taste. But here I could easily see why the book was chosen. Most of the SF books I've read lately that dive more into the sciency side of universal phenomena were too explanatory, used too many characters and made none of them relatable.
Here is a well balanced mix of character interaction and wonderful sciency weirdness. The mc is interesting enough that I liked to follow his journey and the narration structure with the two timelines slowly merging together is my preferred structure anyway. Plus, I never had the feeling that the novel could do with some 100 pages less (unfortunately a notion I often have at the end of books). The prose, too, never felt too clinical, but had a good flow and even some poetic moments, which I loved.
Nice to know that such authors exist.
This end-of-the-world story with a twist has me certainly hooked enough to go on to the next books in the series. Even though I like the ending of the first volume just fine. It has a short story feeling that leaves a lot of room for the imagination of the reader.
Here is a well balanced mix of character interaction and wonderful sciency weirdness. The mc is interesting enough that I liked to follow his journey and the narration structure with the two timelines slowly merging together is my preferred structure anyway. Plus, I never had the feeling that the novel could do with some 100 pages less (unfortunately a notion I often have at the end of books). The prose, too, never felt too clinical, but had a good flow and even some poetic moments, which I loved.
Nice to know that such authors exist.
This end-of-the-world story with a twist has me certainly hooked enough to go on to the next books in the series. Even though I like the ending of the first volume just fine. It has a short story feeling that leaves a lot of room for the imagination of the reader.
July 15, 2017
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October 15, 2008
THe earth is suddenly enclosed in a alien forcefield. It blocks out views of the stars, the sun and the moon. Time inside the "Spin membrane" slows on a millennial scale. No apparent change on the planet, but outside the "spin" 100,000 years go by for every earth day that passes. It lets the author (and thereby the characters) play with the universe on a god-like scale. Small events can make huge changes over geologic time frames, and are easy to watch when that means just a few days to the humans. But, the questions remain, who did this to the earth? Why? How will mankind respond?
This book is a hard sell, it's bleak and depressing and I wonder why I am still reading it. And it's long. I'm not overly fond of the storytelling style, at times we had 3 time-lines going, and the story itself is all about time. I particularly don't like that we are told in a future time-line chapter, the ultimate outcome of certain events. Then we must painfully slog through the next series of present day chapters just to see how they got to the end point. So there is no question of what will happen, but only, how did they end up there? The real question is, do I care? None of the characters are particularly endearing, in fact I don't really like anyone. So why am I still reading this?
Final verdict: The end is not worth the journey. Skip this one.
This book is a hard sell, it's bleak and depressing and I wonder why I am still reading it. And it's long. I'm not overly fond of the storytelling style, at times we had 3 time-lines going, and the story itself is all about time. I particularly don't like that we are told in a future time-line chapter, the ultimate outcome of certain events. Then we must painfully slog through the next series of present day chapters just to see how they got to the end point. So there is no question of what will happen, but only, how did they end up there? The real question is, do I care? None of the characters are particularly endearing, in fact I don't really like anyone. So why am I still reading this?
Final verdict: The end is not worth the journey. Skip this one.
February 9, 2012
I'm going to preface this review with a brief.. Prologue. Honestly, I just can't think of anything else to call it, so I'm going with prologue. My review has a prologue. Deal with it.
I'm a big fan of the fantasy genre. Science fiction? Not so much. It's always driven me nuts that science fiction and fantasy fans are sort of lumped together. Yes, we are forced to share a space at most book stores. But the two genres are so different. I love fantasy.. Swords and castles, heroes and villains, imaginary worlds and magic, all of it. Science fiction though... Admittedly, I haven't read much of it. But what I have read has always seemed so bogged down by techno babble and science mumbo jumbo, it always ends up feeling like work to read it. I read for enjoyment.. Not to learn how a flux capacitor actually works.
So needless to say, I was apprehensive about reading this book. It is, without a doubt, science fiction. But I'm so glad I went ahead and read it anyway, it turned out to be one of the best / most enjoyable books I've read so far this year. Unlike the other science fiction novels that I've read, this one didn't get bogged down with technical descriptions. It was easy to read, and had a lot of interesting concepts. I don't know whether it's particularly original or unique, I don't have enough science fiction experience to make that call, but it felt original and unique to me. I enjoyed reading this book, and when I put it down I always found my mind lingering on it, wondering what was going to happen next, what the full story was. It had that special something that compels you to keep picking it up and reading more (or it did for me at least).
This comes damn close to a 5 star rating, it's probably a 4.5. It's only getting a 4 because I don't like to round up to 5 stars. Highly recommended, give it a try. Who knows, it surprised me, maybe it will surprise you too!
I'm a big fan of the fantasy genre. Science fiction? Not so much. It's always driven me nuts that science fiction and fantasy fans are sort of lumped together. Yes, we are forced to share a space at most book stores. But the two genres are so different. I love fantasy.. Swords and castles, heroes and villains, imaginary worlds and magic, all of it. Science fiction though... Admittedly, I haven't read much of it. But what I have read has always seemed so bogged down by techno babble and science mumbo jumbo, it always ends up feeling like work to read it. I read for enjoyment.. Not to learn how a flux capacitor actually works.
So needless to say, I was apprehensive about reading this book. It is, without a doubt, science fiction. But I'm so glad I went ahead and read it anyway, it turned out to be one of the best / most enjoyable books I've read so far this year. Unlike the other science fiction novels that I've read, this one didn't get bogged down with technical descriptions. It was easy to read, and had a lot of interesting concepts. I don't know whether it's particularly original or unique, I don't have enough science fiction experience to make that call, but it felt original and unique to me. I enjoyed reading this book, and when I put it down I always found my mind lingering on it, wondering what was going to happen next, what the full story was. It had that special something that compels you to keep picking it up and reading more (or it did for me at least).
This comes damn close to a 5 star rating, it's probably a 4.5. It's only getting a 4 because I don't like to round up to 5 stars. Highly recommended, give it a try. Who knows, it surprised me, maybe it will surprise you too!
December 2, 2008
I loved the first 3/4 of this book. The story of the spin and mankind's reaction to it was fascinating, and the characterization was pretty good, but all the while I could see an unsatisfying ending coming: the author chose to alternate between two time periods and the later one was consistently less appealing to me.
The fast-forwarding of the universe was great: a terraformer's dream. It was a little creepy to be reminded how tiny and insignificant humanity really is.
The revelation of the spin's origin and purpose was not quite what I wanted it to be. I tend to like small-scale, more comprehensible science fiction, without omnipotent aliens or advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic. The spin itself was quite grandiose, but it was handled in a practical manner, whereas the rapid influx of concepts at the end seemed vague, magical and rushed.
But this was still a very good book. I'll read more by Wilson.
The fast-forwarding of the universe was great: a terraformer's dream. It was a little creepy to be reminded how tiny and insignificant humanity really is.
The revelation of the spin's origin and purpose was not quite what I wanted it to be. I tend to like small-scale, more comprehensible science fiction, without omnipotent aliens or advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic. The spin itself was quite grandiose, but it was handled in a practical manner, whereas the rapid influx of concepts at the end seemed vague, magical and rushed.
But this was still a very good book. I'll read more by Wilson.
February 19, 2021
"Consider what we’re asking them to believe. We’re talking about, globally, a population with an almost pre-Newtonian grasp of astronomy. How much do you really need to know about the moon and the stars when your life consists of scrounging enough biomass to feed yourself and your family?"
"The only evidence available to the senses was the absence of the stars - absence as evidence, evidence of absence."
* Spin: 5★ (superbe concept & interesting plot, ok characters)
* Axis: 3.5★ (the novelty faded and the plot was rather boring, ok characters)
* Vortex: 4★ (mind blowing at the end)
The characters are only ok in all three books, but the writing is exquisite and I highly enjoyed these books. Although, as my friend Claudia says, a duology would have been even better: book 1 plus o mix of 2+3.
"The only evidence available to the senses was the absence of the stars - absence as evidence, evidence of absence."
* Spin: 5★ (superbe concept & interesting plot, ok characters)
* Axis: 3.5★ (the novelty faded and the plot was rather boring, ok characters)
* Vortex: 4★ (mind blowing at the end)
The characters are only ok in all three books, but the writing is exquisite and I highly enjoyed these books. Although, as my friend Claudia says, a duology would have been even better: book 1 plus o mix of 2+3.
February 15, 2023
This was a great sci-fi book with a dystopian landscape and a unique plot device, a sort of permeable shroud covering the earth that hides the night sky. The hard sci-fi is really well-done and plausible. I had just finished Darwin's Radio before this one and now realize how similar these two books are: something really bad happens and we follow scientists and their friends in a quest to determine the cause while the government takes the dumbass ostrich head-in-a-hole position and the populace just plain freaks out. In Bear's book, we were more focused on evolution and nanoscience whereas in Wilson's we are focused on Spin and time dilation. Oh, did I forget to mention that another side-effect of the Spin was that time on earth passes MUCH more slowly than in the rest of the universe? I think the ratio was 1 sec on earth was 3 1/2 years outside the Spin. So, you end up with the problems that Haldeman deals with in The Forever War and Marooned in Realtime and get some clever solutions. Wilson spends time talking about some of the apocalyptic cults that form out of evangelical xtian movements in a manner which I found both realistic and terrifying. The idea of creating a red heifer to accelerate the end times was also exploited in The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Also, there was a bit of a throwback in the Wun Ngo Wen character to Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land.
Overall, the narrative works really well tying up loose ends and gathering steam. I felt that there was a real ending here and had to remind myself that Wilson wrote two sequels to this book. Not really sure what to expect in those.
Overall, the narrative works really well tying up loose ends and gathering steam. I felt that there was a real ending here and had to remind myself that Wilson wrote two sequels to this book. Not really sure what to expect in those.
April 8, 2012
I think I might be getting a new author crush. Lol. You know the feeling. The euphoria of finding a new favorite. The urge to rush to the nearest bookstore and wipe out their inventory. Which I tried, my nearest B&N didn't cooperate.
Spin begins with the stars blinking off in the night sky...and that's all I'm going to say. If you plan to read this don't read the synopsis. I didn't read the back of the book until I was a bit into it...and like a movie trailer it gives away some of the best parts. In some ways it works as a mystery. A WTH is going on kind of mystery. Think Lost. But with plot.
The reader follows three protagonists. Our narrator Tyler Dupree who gives us the everyday man point of view. Jason Lawton who follows the science route. And his twin sister Diane who seeks comfort in religion.
I didn't know going in that this is a trilogy (I think) but even so most questions got answered. Take that Lost! However it does end with a...okay can I go too? It just kind of ends in a spot you'll want to continue. And having read the description for the second book I know what not to expect.
This is a perfect example of how I like my science fiction. Not too easy. But don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand. I love being confused as long as the author can rein his or her story in by the finale. I love to think! And I found this, and a short story I had read before by same author, to be reminiscent of my favorites. Asimov. Clarke. Poul Anderson. Loved it.
The rating might should be a 4½ or a 4¾, but coming so close I'm bumping it up.
Highly recommended. Don't know why I waited so long.
Spin begins with the stars blinking off in the night sky...and that's all I'm going to say. If you plan to read this don't read the synopsis. I didn't read the back of the book until I was a bit into it...and like a movie trailer it gives away some of the best parts. In some ways it works as a mystery. A WTH is going on kind of mystery. Think Lost. But with plot.
The reader follows three protagonists. Our narrator Tyler Dupree who gives us the everyday man point of view. Jason Lawton who follows the science route. And his twin sister Diane who seeks comfort in religion.
I didn't know going in that this is a trilogy (I think) but even so most questions got answered. Take that Lost! However it does end with a...okay can I go too? It just kind of ends in a spot you'll want to continue. And having read the description for the second book I know what not to expect.
This is a perfect example of how I like my science fiction. Not too easy. But don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand. I love being confused as long as the author can rein his or her story in by the finale. I love to think! And I found this, and a short story I had read before by same author, to be reminiscent of my favorites. Asimov. Clarke. Poul Anderson. Loved it.
The rating might should be a 4½ or a 4¾, but coming so close I'm bumping it up.
Highly recommended. Don't know why I waited so long.
July 22, 2018
Wow, where to start. Well I've just added it to my "favourites" shelf, added the 2 sequels to my TBR and given it 5 stars, so that could be some indication of my thoughts.
I've read other peoples reviews of this book and it's almost like we were reading different novels, but then I suppose that's why we are all different.
Personally it reminded me of AC Clarke books, well written, great characterisation and believable technology. What I also liked were the little things, like the conversations; they weren't stilted or used to explain or describe something, they were believable and natural, and so it felt like you were part of the book, listening in. This is the 2nd RCW book I have read, and like the first, I got to the stage where I had to read on, luckily its Sunday, so I could sit in the garden, in the sun, drinking coffee (or actually forgetting my coffee, yes it was that good a book) and just keep ploughing on. Although it wasn't "ploughing". I was there, I was part of it and the last 100 pages whizzed by in a blur of excitement, expectation and turning pages. I couldn't read it fast enough.
So now I have assimilate what I've read, I already know it will be one of my favourites of 2018, but given how good it was I think I shall have to change genre for a while or I will be disappointed by what I read next.
For anyone who likes Arthur C's writing then I think this is a must for you, for others try it and see, I will (almost) understand if you fail to be as entranced as me.
I've read other peoples reviews of this book and it's almost like we were reading different novels, but then I suppose that's why we are all different.
Personally it reminded me of AC Clarke books, well written, great characterisation and believable technology. What I also liked were the little things, like the conversations; they weren't stilted or used to explain or describe something, they were believable and natural, and so it felt like you were part of the book, listening in. This is the 2nd RCW book I have read, and like the first, I got to the stage where I had to read on, luckily its Sunday, so I could sit in the garden, in the sun, drinking coffee (or actually forgetting my coffee, yes it was that good a book) and just keep ploughing on. Although it wasn't "ploughing". I was there, I was part of it and the last 100 pages whizzed by in a blur of excitement, expectation and turning pages. I couldn't read it fast enough.
So now I have assimilate what I've read, I already know it will be one of my favourites of 2018, but given how good it was I think I shall have to change genre for a while or I will be disappointed by what I read next.
For anyone who likes Arthur C's writing then I think this is a must for you, for others try it and see, I will (almost) understand if you fail to be as entranced as me.
January 21, 2010
4.0 stars. The ideas in this book get at least 5 stars and the novel should be read solely for that. The story and the characters are also pretty good and the overall read is very satisfying.
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
February 7, 2020
This is a SF novel of ‘what if’ variety. It won Hugo in 2006. I read is as a part of monthly reading in February 2020 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.
A slight spoiler will follow in order to give an idea about the what if scenario.
The story starts with a trio of teenagers. Jason and Diane are twins, but they chose completely opposite paths: Jase is a scientist, groomed by his entrepreneur father to become a heir to the tech-empire; Diane is much more interested in spiritual and immaterial, at least partially due to her father’s fixation solely on her brother. Tyler, the narrator, is a year younger friend of the twins, in love with Diane. While they are out in the night, the stars suddenly disappear. It happened throughout the globe – the planet is covered with some kind of a barrier, disengaging it from the rest of the universe. Sun is replaced by a shining perfect disc and tides are still present, but nothing can be seen (or any signal received) thru the barrier. A bit later there is a big reveal: the space rocket can pass the barrier in both directions to find out that
The rest of the story it an attempt to deal with what happened, by joining projects to understand the barrier (Jason), religious cults to meet the End (Diane) or just live their life (by going to get MD, Tyler). There main storyline takes the characters through their lives, while the additional ‘flashforward’ storyline follows Tyler as he evades the law.
The book is the first volume of the trilogy but can be read as a standalone. There is a cliffhanger at the end but after all main questions were answered.
It was a delight to read a SF novel that deals with a ‘what if’ scenario that doesn’t go to the current hot social topics of a lot of modern SF, but presents a challenge for readers: “what would I do in this case?”
A slight spoiler will follow in order to give an idea about the what if scenario.
The story starts with a trio of teenagers. Jason and Diane are twins, but they chose completely opposite paths: Jase is a scientist, groomed by his entrepreneur father to become a heir to the tech-empire; Diane is much more interested in spiritual and immaterial, at least partially due to her father’s fixation solely on her brother. Tyler, the narrator, is a year younger friend of the twins, in love with Diane. While they are out in the night, the stars suddenly disappear. It happened throughout the globe – the planet is covered with some kind of a barrier, disengaging it from the rest of the universe. Sun is replaced by a shining perfect disc and tides are still present, but nothing can be seen (or any signal received) thru the barrier. A bit later there is a big reveal: the space rocket can pass the barrier in both directions to find out that
The rest of the story it an attempt to deal with what happened, by joining projects to understand the barrier (Jason), religious cults to meet the End (Diane) or just live their life (by going to get MD, Tyler). There main storyline takes the characters through their lives, while the additional ‘flashforward’ storyline follows Tyler as he evades the law.
The book is the first volume of the trilogy but can be read as a standalone. There is a cliffhanger at the end but after all main questions were answered.
It was a delight to read a SF novel that deals with a ‘what if’ scenario that doesn’t go to the current hot social topics of a lot of modern SF, but presents a challenge for readers: “what would I do in this case?”
February 9, 2012
I really LOVED this book. I had to think about it for a day or two to decide whether to rate it a 4.5 or a 5, but the fact that i was thinking about it brought it over the edge-lol.
The novel follows the thoughts of Tyler Dupree after the stars are just shut off one night. One storyline follows that evening during his teenage years up until it is revealed exactly what happened to them, while the other plot followsthe present day urge to hide from the government fallout of what is happening in the heavens.
Nothing that happened was predictable, which is always a big + to me.
The novel follows the thoughts of Tyler Dupree after the stars are just shut off one night. One storyline follows that evening during his teenage years up until it is revealed exactly what happened to them, while the other plot followsthe present day urge to hide from the government fallout of what is happening in the heavens.
Nothing that happened was predictable, which is always a big + to me.
February 22, 2022
Okudugum butun bilim kurgu klasiklari ve iklim kurgu kitaplari disinda cok farkli olan bir kitap bu.
Bir gun uyaniyorsunuz ve artik yildizlari goremiyorsunuz. Dunyanin cevresi bir zar ile kaplanmis. Uc arkadas bu ani evlerinin bahcesinde yasiyorlar. Sonrasinda olanlar otuz kirk yillik bir hikaye...
Kurgu bilimsel bilgilerin buyuk ciddiyetle verildigi, karakter gelisimlerinin tam oldugu, cok basarili bir kitap. Ozellikle sonlara dogru iki zamanda ilerleyen hikaye akici ve sorunsuz bir sekilde birlesiyor.
Bilim kurguyu sevmeye basladim galiba...
Bir gun uyaniyorsunuz ve artik yildizlari goremiyorsunuz. Dunyanin cevresi bir zar ile kaplanmis. Uc arkadas bu ani evlerinin bahcesinde yasiyorlar. Sonrasinda olanlar otuz kirk yillik bir hikaye...
Kurgu bilimsel bilgilerin buyuk ciddiyetle verildigi, karakter gelisimlerinin tam oldugu, cok basarili bir kitap. Ozellikle sonlara dogru iki zamanda ilerleyen hikaye akici ve sorunsuz bir sekilde birlesiyor.
Bilim kurguyu sevmeye basladim galiba...
April 2, 2021
3.5 Stars
I absolutely loved the premise and setup to this novel, but I did not entirely love the execution. My favourite aspect of this novel was easily the elements of hard science. However, I didn't love the personal story, particularly the potential romance. I found the writing to be average, but I kept reading for the scientific information. I heard that the second book is weaker so I don't plan to continue.
I absolutely loved the premise and setup to this novel, but I did not entirely love the execution. My favourite aspect of this novel was easily the elements of hard science. However, I didn't love the personal story, particularly the potential romance. I found the writing to be average, but I kept reading for the scientific information. I heard that the second book is weaker so I don't plan to continue.
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