Spin

Starred review from January 31, 2005
One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking "what if," Wilson (Blind Lake
, etc.)
builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres. The narrative time oscillates effortlessly between Tyler Dupree's early adolescence and his near-future young manhood haunted by the impending death of the sun and the earth. Tyler's best friends, twins Diane and Jason Lawton, take two divergent paths: Diane into a troubling religious cult of the end, Jason into impassioned scientific research to discover the nature of the galactic Hypotheticals whose "Spin" suddenly sealed Earth in a "cosmic baggie," making one of its days equal to a hundred million years in the universe beyond. As convincing as Wilson's scientific hypothesizing is—biological, astrophysical, medical—he excels even more dramatically with the infinitely intricate, minutely nuanced relationships among Jason, Diane and Tyler, whose older self tries to save them both with medicines from Mars, terraformed through Jason's genius into an incubator for new humanity. This brilliant excursion into the deepest inner and farthest outer spaces offers doorways into new worlds—if only humankind strives and seeks and finds and will not yield compassion for our fellow beings. Agent, Shawna McCarthy. (Apr. 14)

FYI:
Wilson's novel
The Chronoliths won the John W. Campbell Award; three of his novels have been Hugo finalists.

March 15, 2005
When Tyler was ten years old, he and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, witnessed the night the stars "disappeared," leaving a protective barrier separating Earth from the rest of the universe and slowing the passage of time within the barrier. Jason becomes a scientist devoted to finding a way to break through Earth's artificial shell before the acceleration of time outside the barrier brings about the death of the sun within the world's foreseeable future. Diane joins an apocalyptic cult, and Tyler dedicates his life to preserving the sanity of the people he loves best -even when he discovers Jason's hidden agenda. The author of "Darwinia" and "Blind Lake" crafts a tale of apocalyptic proportions, blending the best of hard science and speculative fiction with a poignant tale of childhood's end. Recommended for most libraries.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2005
When Jack's twin, Jilly, dares him to ride the waves despite an approaching hurricane, he nearly drowns. He remembers Jilly dragging him out, but she can't recall him nearly drowning. Jack has just discovered his power to change the immediate past. Witcover thereafter mixes Jack's story with that of the mutant airie, Kestrel, who has joined in a traditional pentad pilgrimage--a pentad consisting of one representative each of the five mutant races that ceaselessly battle humans. As Jack struggles with his power and growing disparities between his memories and apparent reality, Kestrel struggles with his pentad's interactions and the possibility that a human infiltrator has set the group up for destruction. Kestrel and Jack both approach disaster--and collision. The horror of Jack's realizations about his bizarre capability combines with Kestrel's part in the mute-human war to take on train-wreck momentum. A nifty take on parallel worlds and superhuman power.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)