The Big Idea . . .

Every once in a while I start reading a book that has a really novel idea, a big idea, so different in scope that I wonder how in the hell the author thought of it.  I've found one of those books, and I'm only half way through it.

The book is Spin by Robert Charles Wilson and the idea is this:  one day all the stars and the moon are gone.  The earth is enveloped by a membrane that shields it from the rest of the universe, but here's the rub - time has slowed down inside the membrane.  Where it appears that time is progressing normally, it's not - sensor readings from probes sent up to the "spin" show that for every second that passes on earth, 3.7 years passes outside.  That means that in ten years on our planet, the solar system ages a billion years.  The Sun is growing and dying and the people on earth stand to be around for the awful moment when the sun consumes our planet.

And that's just in the first fifty pages or so. 

Spin is right - because my head is spinning with thoughts and possibilities and questions unanswered.  I hope the end of the book matches the opening. 

- rick, reading.

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

reminds me of an old twilight zone

[mattman]

Thanks, Rick, I just hopped in the hold queue at my library for this -- sounds very interesting. :)

[CV Rick]

I didn't see that one, Rose.

Matt, I'm close to the ending and it's a doozy . . . I'm glad I've read it.

[jane]

You only have this on audio, right?

[CV Rick]

yes, that's true.

[bex]

so that's what you were blathering on about with Jeremy on Sunday...

I thought I heard something about "probes around your anus" and I decided to mind my own business...

[CV Rick]

Bex, you're usually uninterested in fiction.