The Chronoliths

Brooks Peck writes: "The Chronoliths, by the underappreciated* Robert Charles Wilson, is a finalist for the 2001 Hugo Award and Campbell Award. The tale begins in 2021 with the abrupt arrival of the first Chronolith, a 200-foot-high monument of unknown composition that memorializes a military victory. It's dated twenty years in the future. More Chronoliths follow, blinking into existence with explosive force--usually in the centers of cities. Each is grander than the last, and each lauds another victory by a leader who does not currently exist." The Chronoliths author Robert Charles Wilson pages 301 publisher Tor Books rating 8.5 reviewer Brooks Peck ISBN 0812545249 summary Big honking monoliths beam in from the future.

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.

Comments

Future Dating?

[Ryan_Terry]

**Disclaimer** I really know nothing about carbon dating, just babbling here...

Now unless the "Born On" date was stamped to the bottom how exactly does one Future Date something? Does it actually gain more carbon that it would have now, so that by the time we see it the carbon is right?

Re:Review is confusing

[Darkfred]

Umm you seem to be thinking this is a high school book report. What you have here is actually a book REVIEW and is meant to do nothing but whet your appetite for reading the book, as well as give a few opinions about how it stacks up relative to other books.
Also the only kind of book reports that give chapter subjects and highlights are for purchasing technical or text books.

But since you are obviously some sort of alien who only reads slashdot this may have been the only kind of book review you've seen.

Regards,

oysters

[coyote-san]

You also have to pay close attention to the biological processes involved. One of the favorite "proofs" that evolution is all wrong and therefore the literal interpretation of the Christian book of Genesis *must* be accurate is the fact that some breed of oyster (or at least some type of clam) preferentially uses one isotope of carbon over another. It's enough so that you can pull an oyster from the ocean, eat most of the meat, and date the rest as thousands of years old.

I don't remember the mechanism involved, but it's something that makes sense to the scientists involved and they can account for it. But anyone who's only had the standard K-12 exposure to science would be utterly confused by the results.

Try a sample

[sh00z]

There's an excerpt (from the grossly-overpriced ebook version) here.

Re:Review is confusing

[Nomad7674]

Not sure this is a better review, but here is my take on it:

An unknown terrorist leader from the future begins beaming back monuments to himself through time (think of the Washington Monument appearing suddenly in the middle of colonial virginia), which tell of a terrible war where this terrible leader won everything. These monuments appear with more and more frequency as time moves on, and the world begins to panic as they imagine a new Ghengis Khan, Hitler, or Hannibal. Like people claiming to be the Messiah today, people begin taking on the name of the leader and claiming to be HIM in their own areas of the world. Chaos threatens to engulf the world, as our heros try to find a way to prevent an outcome which has apparently already happened.

Basically, I found the book interesting, but not exciting or compelling. The narrative was diverse and the ideas unusual, but in the end many threads were left unexplored and the book sort of peters out rather than ending with a bang. If you like speculative fiction, this will fill a pleasant afternoon but is not a "must-have."

At least that is my two cents.