- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Orb Books; First Edition edition (Mar 1 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0765325284
- ISBN-13: 978-0765325280
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #230,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Robert Charles Wilson is an accomplished and acclaimed writer with an impressive body of work. The Chronoliths is his best novel yet, an intelligent, fascinating, and frightening account of a unique incarnation of time travel.
American software developer Scott Warden is living a careless expatriate life on the beaches of 21st century Thailand when a monolithic pillar, sheathed in ice and composed of an unknown, indestructible material, appears in the jungle. The artifact is a chronolith, a memorial commemorating the conquest of Thailand--20 years in the future. As Warden follows his estranged wife and badly injured daughter back to the U.S., more chronoliths celebrating future victories appear, to devastating effect. Bangkok and Jerusalem are destroyed, and societies worldwide dissolve in chaos or teeter on the brink of collapse. As the chronoliths close in on America, Scott joins with biker and undercover agent Hitch Paley and experimental physicist Sue Chopra in a literal race against time to find a way to change the future--which has already happened. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A talented SF writer who has never gained the name recognition he deserves, Wilson (Darwinia) is a master of character development, comparable to the late Theodore Sturgeon in his believable portrayals of emotionally scarred loners. Scott Warden, an abuse survivor, first drags his family off to Thailand for a short-lived programming job and then refuses to leave the country when his job ends, forcing his wife and daughter into poverty. One fateful day, Scott takes off for the backcountry to witness the advent of the first Chronolith, an enormous high-tech monument sent from 20 years in the future to commemorate the military victory of an Asian tyrant named Kuin. By the time Scott returns home he discovers that his family has fled to the U.S. and that his marriage is effectively over. Soon after, another Chronolith appears, destroying Bangkok, and it's followed by many more, each one proclaiming the victories of the mysterious Kuin. Scott is contacted by a former teacher, the physicist Sue Chopra, who believes that Scott's proximity to the original Chronolith has connected him to the ongoing disaster in some strange fashion. As Sue and Scott attempt to figure out what's going on, society gradually collapses around them. People begin to worship Kuin as a virtual god and, as the years pass, the date on which the first Chronolith was launched draws near. This superb novel, combining Wilson's trademark well-developed characters and fine prose with stunning high-tech physics, should strongly appeal to connoisseurs of quality science fiction. (Aug. 20)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
It was Hitch Paley, rolling his beat-up Daimler motorbike across the packed sand of the beach behind the Haat Thai Dance Pavilion, who invited me to witness the end of an age. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was Hitch Paley, rolling his beat-up Daimler motorbike across the packed sand of the beach behind the Haat Thai Dance Pavilion, who invited me to witness the end of an age. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looks Like Nonsense...,
By
This review is from: The Chronoliths (Mass Market Paperback)
..., I mean: please - The Chronoliths? The vague, futurey/fantasy-inspired cover art?Despite appearances, however, this is a mature, heartbreaking, but ultimately optimistic novel about believable, flawed characters. Highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldnt put it down, and it made me go look up Calabi-Yau,
By
This review is from: The Chronoliths (Mass Market Paperback)
Ive been working hard to read a lot of the ARCs I received at Book Expo America and have read and reviewed three. But on a recent trip, I finished one and had only my trusty backup emergency paperback in my bag. It was The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson, recommended to me by my friend Christopher (who also turned me on to Illium).Christopher is 2 for 2; I could not put this book down. And he made me use the Internet to connect the dots of my long ago Physics degree and go back and refresh my old brain on manifolds and their relationship to quantum mechanics (yeah, I knowgeek boy). The Chronoliths tells of massive monuments that spring up instantaneously, the first one in Thailand, observed by our main character Scott. All of them have inscriptions of a battle won some twenty years in the future by a warlord named Kuin. Another springs up in the middle of Bangkok, causing devastation. The monuments are named Chronoliths, and begin showing up all over Asia, apparently foretelling the path of conquest of this future warlord. The science is, of course, how can these monoliths be sent twenty years back in time, and how to stop them. Because as they appear with alarming regularity, mankind begins to believe that there is no way to stop them and society sees itself as doomed. A former college professor of Scotts, Sue Chopra, believes she can first predict and then stop the Chronoliths from forming, with some string theory / M-theory constructs: I did not then and I do not now understand the physics of the Chronoliths, except in the pop-science sense. I know the technology involves the manipulation of Calabi-Yau spaces, which are the smallest constituent parts of both matter and energy, and that it uses a technique called slow fermionic decohesion to do this at practical energy levels. As to what really happens down there in the tangled origami of spacetime, I remain as ignorant as a newborn infant. The pacing is this book is perfectly written. The science is integrated in with the story so that you barely notice it, done so by having the point of view for the novel from a man who is not a physicist or mathematician, so information gets dumbed down for him. But the science is written in a way that it made me follow the links back through the Internet to get an update on these theories. As was discussed during a session at Apollocon today (see Johns notes at SF Signal), its called science fiction for a reason; dont use them as science text books, but they make you think, remember and research the current theories and learnings. Also, as a counterpoint to string theory, see Peter Woits blog.
4.0 out of 5 stars
unique ideas,
By
This review is from: The Chronoliths (Mass Market Paperback)
I picked up one of his earlier works -- I want to say 'by accident', but it's tough to 'accidentally read a novel' -- by chance a half-decade ago, and it was one of those few books that I sat down and read right through in a short span of time (I'm a slow but careful reader.) Usually I take my time, get distracted, and it takes months to read a book from start to finish when all the little breaks get factored in. But there is something about the style that is not especially complex, but brings together a absolutely solid concept into a flowing narrative. But, I don't think it's that Wilson has so much a 'great' writing style, but rather that his ideas are just plain unique: think philosophical or scientific paradox set in the near future, with fairly solid three-dimensional character development.
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