CUSP: A Review

I have written previously about what I called Really Big Concepts in science fiction. For that novel, it worked. For this novel, CUSP, by Robert A. Metzger, it initially works, but ultimately fails.

The novel opens in 2031 as a solar flare of unprecedented size is occurring. Some people realize it is not just an exceptionally large flare; it's edges are absolutely straight. Something is controlling it. And it is causing the Sun to move.

At the same time this is occurring, two monstrous walls, many miles wide and tall, rise from the Earth, while all of the planet's seismic faults simultaneously snap. The walls straddle the planet in two directions, along the equator and across the poles. All of this throws the entirety of the planet's civilization into chaos. Soon after that the solar flare shuts down and the Sun stops moving.

CUSP then jumps to the year 2051. The survivors of the 2031 events have been spending the time both trying to recover and to understand what happened. It is at this point that author Metzger starts bringing in metaphysical concepts that I feel ultimately cause the failure of this novel.

In 2051 one man, a U.S. Army General, has gathered enough intelligence about the events of 2031 to know that the Sun's controlled flare will soon start up again to resume moving the star, and at the same time energy output from the planetary walls (now called the Rings) will cause Earth to move with it, and there is no way he or anyone else can stop all that from happening.

But the General is determined to find a way to exert some degree of control on the manner in which the movements of the Sun and the Earth occur. And this is where the metaphysics start coming into play. The General believes the only way he will obtain such control is if humanity transcends itself and moves to a higher level of existence (moves past the Point, to use author Metzger's word.)

I found the talk between characters about transcending the Point eventually got so dense that I simply found it unreadable and I started skimming pages trying to find something that I would find more readable. And for me, such a development means this is not a novel I will want to retain and eventually read again.

Spin: A Review

I have just completed reading Spin , a science fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson. From time to time SF authors come out with Really Big Concepts. When an author combines that with good fiction, then we have a winner, and Spin is just such a novel.

In this case, the Really Big Concept is that Earth is enclosed by unknown forces in a membrane (the Spin) that not only cuts off all sunlight (which is replaced by an apparently artifical sun) and starlight, but also radically alters how time passes on Earth. A specific example mentioned in the novel is that while five years have passed on the planet, 500 million years have passed in the rest of the universe, on the other side of the membrane. Now, if that's not a Big Concept, I don't know what is!

Into this Wilson gives us the stories of three persons: twins Jason and Diane Lawton, and Tyler Dupree, their friend. The novel starts with the night the the Spin is put in place. The Lawton twins and Tyler are respectively thirteen and twelve. The three of them are outside looking at stars while the twins parents are throwing a party when they suddenly realize they can no longer see any stars.

A crew of Russian cosmonauts who were in orbit when the Spin appeared spend a week unable to regain communications with anyone on the ground before they decide to risk a manual atmospheric reentry, but once they are safely on the ground they are told it is the same night the membrane appeared. Nobody believes their story of having spent as much time in orbit as they say.

But it is later discovered packages of instruments can be boosted through the membrane by rockets to record what is happening on the other side and then allowed to come back to Earth the same day. When their recorded data is examined, the realization of the changes in how time is passing occurs.

Through out this novel the author provides a exciting mix of ideas and good old fashioned science fiction. For instance, the successful terraforming and colonization of Mars occurs during the lifetimes of the three main characters thanks to the time passage differential.

All in all Spin is a very highly recommended work!