Robert Charles Wilson

After witnessing the onset of an astronomical event that has caused the sun to go black and the stars and moon to disappear, Tyler, Jason, and Diane learn that the darkness has been caused by a time-altering, alien-created artificial barrier and that the sun will be extinguished in less than forty years. Winner of the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Reissue.

Spin

Shiveen Pandita

I read it and I did not like it as much as I thought I would. It had an intriguing premise but an almost lame ending.

Alost

this slow paced science fiction explores the human nature in a changed world

Ben Burns

Very cool idea, and done well enough that there was never a moment that I didn’t want to keep reading. And I liked the choice of protagonist, and his relation to the events that unfolded - but that choice led the author to a tell-and-not-show style that cheapened everything. All of the interesting sci-fi stuff was explained by other characters and told in the past tense, instead of experienced; the only parts of the book that I felt I got to live through alongside the protagonist were the more mundane side stories he got to participate in directly.

From the author of Axis and Vortex, the first Hugo Award-winning novel in the environmental apocalyptic Spin Trilogy... One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ken Gagne

I loved how this book reminded me of one of my favorite Star Trek: Voyager episodes, "Blink of an Eye". The only thing I was disappointed by was how detached the protagonist seemed from everything going on around him. Other characters even acknowledge it, but I don't feel it was satisfactorily explained.

Chelsea Breher

Spin is a futuristic dystopian novel written by Canadian author Robert Charles Wilson that follows the lives of Ty, Jason, and Di as they grow up in a world that is altered by the hypotheticals. In their world there is no stars, they magically disappeared one night while the kids are admiring the sky above them during a party. Each of the kids adjust to life without the stars in a different way, through science, religion, and even just being there as a support system for those who need them. The novel itself is presented through a mixture of real time and flash backs, as you read it you have to analysis whether the narrator, Ty, is talking about his present time or his past, every part of the novel is presented through Ty’s point of view. It is written in away that someone without a scientific background can still understand what is going on and understand the urgency and crisis that the three main characters face throughout the novel. I read this novel for an English class and I intend on reading the rest of the trilogy as it was well written and informative without making me, the reader, feel dumb for not having a background in the science portions of the novel.

Jeremy Cote

I thought this was a fantastic book. The characters are well-developed, and the author write in a style that I love. I enjoyed the two different timelines, and it made for a great read. Even though it's a long book, I just blazed through the book.

Spin

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