One night last week I fell asleep listening to Carl Sagan talk about the thought experiments of Albert Einstein. Not a bad way to be rocketed into dreamland. And sure enough, I dreamed of space, relativity, and an idea as big as the cosmos.
In my dream, humanity had completed the measurements and determined that the universe did not contain enough matter to slow an eternal expansion. Because of this, the deep future would be one where space grew ever darker, ever cooler, ever emptier. Eventually there would be only the cold iron remnants of stars stretched at growing distances over an expanding infinity. Some final flickers of light could pop into the starless night as lumps of matter were ripped apart on the event horizon of slowly evaporating black holes, but eventually even that would end. It was a universe doomed to be utterly barren, utterly without activity, lightless, lifeless, and cold for an unmeasurable forever.
To hold back this ultimate doom, a great engineering project had been launched. A fleet of interstellar ramjets -- ships that could run on the scattering of hydrogen atoms found between the stars -- had been commissioned to a singular purpose. These vast craft would accelerate until they approached ever closer to the speed of light. 99%. 99.9%. 99.99% Relativity says that the ships would never close that final gap. They could get nearer and nearer the speed of light, but never reach it. But as the ships drew the string of decimal places ever longer, a strange thing would happen. Less and less of their energy would go into acceleration. More and more of it would turn into mass. Eventually each ship in the fleet would become as massive as a star, as massive as a galaxy, as massive as many galaxies put together. Circling around the universe, this fleet would use this mass to herd the scattered stars back together and gather up galaxies like sheep dogs bringing in a flock. They would halt the expansion and pull the universe into a form that would keep it viable for trillions of years.
As I settled into my position on one of these ships, I knew that the journey ahead of me -- one lap of the known universe -- would take decades from my point of view. Likely I would not live to see the journey's end. Even if I did, the faces of those taking up their places on board were the only human faces I would ever see again. Travel near the speed of light would not only do counter-intuitive things to energy and mass, it would also have a drastic effect on time. Decades would pass for those of us aboard the ship, but it would be tens of billions of years for those left behind. The great project might save the universe, but it could not stop the effects of time on those left behind. If the ship completed its route, it would return to find the Earth a burned out cinder, the sun long ago gone dark.
When I woke up, I thought through the dream as I was eating breakfast. Thirty or forty years ago I read the short story "To Outlive Eternity" by Poul Anderson which features a runaway interstellar ramjet. That was surely the inspiration for my universe-mangling fleet. Frankly, I don't believe it would work. Even if the engines on that ship were 100% efficient, you'd not get more relativistic mass than what you originally had as fuel. There was no way to really halt expansion or make up the missing mass. Of course, if you could somehow use some of the many massless particles that exist in the universe to add to the energy source... Hmmm...
In any case, I'm not going to hold the universe together this evening, but I am hoping to get you to make an orbit of your bookstore to pick up a few volumes you may have missed.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
Only days before a SETI project is slated to end, the massive dish at Arecibo in Puerto Rico picks up a signal from another world. However this signal isn't some mathematical formula or any sort of technical information. It's music -- singing of a literally unearthly beauty. Inspired by the signal, Jesuit priest and unmatched linguist Emilio Sandoz convinces the church to fund an expedition. While the rest of the world debates what to do, Sandoz pulls together a team of scientists and his fellow Jesuits to travel to the distant planet of Rakat. The journey itself will take years, and they know nothing about what they will find at the other end, but Sandoz is certain that he is being guided by the hand of God. What follows is a story of wonderful intentions and horrible outcomes, friendship and loss, faith and doubt, amazing beauty and profound horror. Don't worry if you don't like books about religion. Hell, don't worry if you don't like books about science fiction. This is a book full of rich characters and serious discussion of deep ideas both sacred and secular. Halfway through this novel, I found myself turning to the author biography and actually becoming angry to find the words "first novel." No one, but no one, should be this good right out of the gate. Whether Father Emilio Sandoz is guided by the hand of God or not is open to debate. But something certainly had a grip on Mary Doria Russell as she was writing this book.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The central character of Collins' dystopic tale is in turns immensely brave, wise, sympathic, and insightful. She's also painfully naive, bone-headedly stubborn, and sometimes as dense as a box of rocks. In short, she's sixteen. Born into a nightmare version of North America where a ruling capital forces children from the provinces to battle to the death (both as amusement for the elite and to remind the yokels of the cost of rebellion), Katniss grows up poaching game just to keep her family from starving. When her younger sister is selected for the deadly games, Katness steps forward to replace her in the arena. A good bit of the world building in the book doesn't hold up well to close scrutiny, and... it doesn't matter a bit. Well before Katniss is dropped into the to-the-death combat, you'll be completely bowled over by both her strength and her flaws. Katniss is a force of nature, a "girl on fire," and the flames she kindles during the games are hotter than she knows. I'm less enthralled with the second volume, as Katniss' story seems much less in her own hands and she's required to be, well, dumb at several points. But middle books of a trilogy are always a tough chore and I'm certainly going to be there for book three. Propelled along by a first-person narrative that locks you into Katniss' skull, this is a book that manages to combine adventure and horror with some substantial thoughts on politics and justice. Deserving of the praise it's been getting.
Archangel by Sharon Shinn
Just looking at the cover, you could be forgiven for thinking that this book is a fantasy. Once you start into the liquid, elegant prose the true nature of the world of Samaria and its people can only be teased free a bit at a time. Here are angels -- actual, flying angels -- that sing their praises to god, and a god who responds with rain, or sunshine, or an end to disease. But angels aren't alone in this world. They are tied (intimately) to the humans of Samaria in a relationship that is rarely without tension. This is world-building at its best, a world that has different cultures, a history, an economy, and its own legends. It's also character building at its best with complex characters limned by their own inner lives. By the time you realize that it's actually science fiction, you'll be past caring about such fine distinctions. On top of the rich background and lush prose, Shinn drapes a romance that's fire and ice, a political struggle that's life and death, and a love of music and language that shines from every page. I have to confess that I've known Sharon Shinn for longer than either of us would like to admit (in fact, I warned her last night that I was going to praise her book today), but that doesn't mean that this book shouldn't be on the top of your "books to give to people who think they don't like science fiction" stack.
The Many-Colored Land by Julian May
When a gateway leading six million years into the past is found, it's scientifically interesting but practically useless. After all, this time doorway is strictly one way -- you can step through, but you can never return to the present. What the scientists and government studying the gateway fail to anticipate is the attraction this holds for all sorts of misfits, malcontents, and romantics. Equipped with camping gear that's designed to fall apart over time (to minimize the chance that their exploits will affect history) a steady stream of would-be settlers step through the door, anticipating starting a new life in the unspoiled Pliocene wilderness. The novels joins the story as a group of travelers prepares to step through this one-way door (and the little background we get on each of them is the slowest part of otherwise fast-paced book). Each of them has an idea of what they're going to find on the other side. All of them are wrong. Waiting for them is a kingdom of the most unlikely sort: one run by telepathic aliens that have taken over the past Earth. Chockablock with colorful characters and insane ideas, May's first volume of the "Pliocene Exile" is a wild ride that has a few bumps and threatens to derail at several points, but it's held together with a deft hand and strong writing. By the time you reach the end, you can't help asking yourself: would you step through that door?
A quick note: I very much appreciate the great response that this little feature received during the first couple of weeks. The discussion and the suggestions that have come up in comments have been terrific, and at least two of the books in this week's group were ones whose names popped up in comments -- prompting me to do a forehead slap and a loud "man, that should have been in the first list!" So don't stop reminding me of volumes I've forgotten. My intention is to pick books that aren't necessarily at the top of every list of "ten best science fiction novels of all time," but don't let that stop you from singing their praises -- after all, even the best known books have been read by only a tiny percentage of the public. And I promise, fantasy and alternate history will have their days.