Overview
"Three hundred years from now, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to a technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust." "Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose." Something astonishing has been discovered at the far end of a wormhole: mid-twentieth century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber. Somewhere on this alternate planet is a device capable of destroying both worlds at either end of the wormhole. And Verity must find the device, and the man who plans to activate it, before it is too late - for the past and the future of two worlds.Synopsis
The award-winning author of the Revelation Space trilogy continues to forge the future of science fiction in this awe-inspiring new novel centered on the discovery of a perfectly preserved mid-twentieth-century Earth 300 years in the future.
Publishers Weekly
In his latest SF novel, Reynolds (Absolution Gap) creates yet another quirky, noirish vision of humanity's future. Three centuries from now, a technologically induced catastrophe, the Nanocaust, makes Earth uninhabitable. Two versions of humanity-the Threshers, who live in a ring of habitats encircling Earth, and the Slashers, who inhabit the outer planets-each blame the other for the disaster. Both groups share access to a system of artificial wormholes, one of which turns out to contain a perfect copy of Earth, sealed off from the rest of the galaxy, at its far end. The Threshers send archeologist Verity Auger to investigate. On this subtly different version of Earth, Wendell Floyd, a second-rate detective and jazz musician living in Paris in the year 1959, is looking into a very odd murder. Then Auger shows up claiming to be the victim's sister and pursued by lethal creatures who look like decaying children. While Reynolds beautifully details this alternate-universe Paris and handles the developing mystery with aplomb, his Thresher and Slasher cultures lack depth and his climax feels a bit jury-rigged. Still, fans of sophisticated hard SF should be pleased. Agent, Robert Kirby at Peters, Fraser and Dunlop (U.K.). (June 6) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.