Thursday, February 9, 2012

Spin, Robert Charles Wilson

Great book! It will probably be a sci-fi classic. Even though it's written for a mainstream audience there are plenty of insightful quotes, and Wilson has a talent for ending sections with remarkable sentences that would probably even keep readers who aren't fans of sci-fi wanting more. Not only that, but that he's served up some fascinating, well-developed characters (most of whom are certified geniuses), and he has a concise way of explaining all the scientific perks that nerds like myself ponder over.

The hook of the book is that Earth, for some mysterious reason, has been blacked out by a membrane which encloses it inside a sort of wormhole which speeds up time. Humans are faced with the daunting task of trying to discover a solution to the "spin" before being swallowed up by the time-lapse of the sun's growth.

I thought that it could have been about 100-150 pages shorter; I didn't think the expedition to Mars was necessary, but in the classic sci-fi genre Mars is pretty much essential, so Wilson probably just wanted to take a chapter from his influences. The ending was a perfect cliffhanger, satisfying yet unsatisfying, and has me wanting to read the next installment in the series.


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