Slashdot Mirror
The Chronoliths
Witness to it all is our narrator, Scott Warden. There's nothing special about this guy. He's no clever scientist, no tough soldier. He's just a computer programmer who happens to be close to the location of the first arrival. After that he's pulled into the Chronolith investigation by a series of seeming coincidences. But where the manipulation of time is involved, coincidence becomes a slippery concept--something his co-investigators are well aware of.
I consider this quiet, unassuming novel to be on the cutting edge of science fiction for this reason: it creates a literary metaphor for our current view (and fears) of the near future. Just as giant, mutant bugs stood for our fear of the bomb in the '50s, the Chronoliths represent our fear of what's just around the corner today. But today we can no longer easily predict what the future holds. Science changes things too quickly--so quickly that we can only say with confidence that we cannot say what the future will be like.
Science fiction writers have devised a variety of means to cope with this threat to their livelihood. Vernor Vinge pulls off a plausible (and excellent) space opera in A Fire Upon the Deep by having the universe limit how far science can progress depending on its location in the galaxy. Other writers retreat to the very near future. The rise in popularity of alternate history stories could be another byproduct of this dilemma.
But in The Chronoliths Wilson doesn't resort to any tricks. The novel is all about the unknowableness of the future, as represented by the Chronoliths themselves: impenetrable, unstoppable, and, most importantly, of our own making.
*Perhaps one reason Wilson isn't as well known as he should be is that his novels are not as strong as his short fiction. The Chronoliths, interestingly, is his first novel written in first-person, the point of view he chose for many of his best short stories including "The Perseids" and "The Inner Inner City."
You can purchase The Chronoliths from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Carbon dating only tells you how long it's been since an organic life form died. Thus it does not work on a) things that have never lived or b) things that are currently alive. If it worked in reverse, you would be able to tell me when I was going to die (sort of the topic of a R.A.H. short story, "Timeline").
To be even more general, carbon dating assumes many things about the state of the atmosphere, sun, and organic life. It would work on another world, but the parameters are different.
This is why after a certain horizon (measured in tens of thousands of years, AFAIK), you have to switch to something like Uranium-decay. Even still after you start going past a significant percentage of the Earth's history (say 500M-1B years) it starts getting hard to back up any specifics.
Any geologitsts want to chime in here?
Specifically, I read it on June 18, on airplanes and in airports taking a trip with my daughter.
Good book, though IMHO "The Harvest" is still my Robert Charles Wilson favorite. (Kind of like "Childhood's End" but different.)
To clear up a few basics, the Chronoliths appear, smashing cities where they do. They have writing on them, commemorating a battle victory 20 years in the future. No carbon dating needed, they read the information. If you suddenly had a big monument materialize obliterating your city, would you be prone to distrust the writing on it?
Of a more interesting nature is a hero who is a hero by working his craft, not his fists. This aspect is reminiscent of Neal Stephenson's works or "Crosstime Engineer". (Author forgotten, but I think he was Polish) In most fiction no matter what the profession of the hero, the hero-work seems to get done with fists and guns. Nice to see a change.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You also get things like a few nuclear weapon explosions messing it up too.
What?
http://www.sfsite.com/10b/cl114.htm
http://www.januarymagazine.com/SFF/chronoliths.htm l
http://www.mervius.com/books/chronoliths.htm
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The strength of Robert Charles Wilson's latest book is not in the time travel per se, but rather the response of a group of fully-developed, sympathetic characters to the phenomena they are encountering.
To my delight (and unlike so much literary fiction these days), Wilson's protagonists DO SOMETHING. It may not always be the right course of action, but there is an understandable human motivation when it is the wrong course of action.
Scotty, the protagonist, is strong yet flawed, and his fascination with The Chronoliths is kept in proper perspective. Sue Chopra, the brilliant physicist, is handled gingerly by an accomplished author.
The time travel theme -- the appearance of "artifacts" from the future -- is not new but is integral to the story. And this latter point is crucial to good science fiction. The science (regardless of what you think of time travel dynamics) is consistent and interesting and becomes a de facto character in the tale.
The only area where the novel could've been strengthened was the development of Scotty's relationship with his father, and indeed, development of the father's character in general.
Nevertheless, this is an entertaining and thought-provoking book with a broad scope, engaging characters and a very interesting ending.
It is also an optimistic allegory to the hope and renewel that always follows tragedy, like the euphoria following World War II.
It is well worth the read. Wilson is going to be a major force in speculative fiction in years to come.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Read that as 'doesn't currently exist as a leader'. The person, in fact, is assumed to be somewhere, and because of the strange looping effect of knowing the future, is drawn forward into leadership by his own future successes. In fact, multiple potential leaders appear, all assuming that they will be the one that the Chronoliths refer to.
Really, it's a pretty good book, but frankly, not one of my Robert Charles Wilson favorites. I'll take Mysterium or Memory Wire, or A Bridge of Years anyday. His older stuff is better than his newer stuff, IMHO.
No relation to Happy Monkey