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.
The book moves on with the relationship between Tyler and his childhood friends, brother and sister Jason and Diane. Jason is a central figure in investigating the new reality and Diane is in the religious movement that springs up around this anomaly. Tyler changes as more is discovered and as his own personal life collapses along with civilization.
In the end that's what makes this brilliant idea work as a book. The characters are believable and the story is moving. I recommend this novel highly.
- CV Rick, May 2008
Comments