I Love books. Let me clarify, that last love, the capitalized one, that wasn’t accidental. I would have spelled it as LOVE but then people tend to overwrite my emotions as more crazy cat lady and less avid reader. PS here is a picture of my cat, her paws smell like Cheetos and she likes to check that I don’t have any cavities.
So. . . I am always on the lookout for a new series. I stumbled across a list of the “100 must read books for humans under 25” or some other ridiculously titled article and one of the few that caught my eye was Spin published in 2006 by Tom Doherty Books, and written by Robert Charles Wilson.
The first in a trilogy of books about the near distant future, Spin focuses on life on earth once it is impossible to have a future on earth. Biotechnology has come to play an incredibly important role and while earthlings are going about their daily lives, one night the stars go out. Over time, it is discovered that there is a protective “bubble” around the planet that makes time pass in strange ways. Inside the bubble a minute passes, while the rest of the universe outside ages 100 years. This allows for some startling and strange experiments to occur and for the human race as a whole to have a new chance at life.
I loved the characters in this novel! They were all thoughtfully constructed so that they were likable but human. The way Wilson writes intertwines the present (4 x 109 AD) and the past (the childhood and adolescence of the three protagonists,) and it is done beautifully and never feels confusing or broken.
At 450 pages, this book is neither short nor terribly long, but it flew by. I found myself reading it while walking or in the 6 minutes it takes to make vegetables for dinner. Don’t judge, sometimes you need some 6 minute Costco veggies and a glass of wine for dinner. Needless to say, I just couldn’t put it down.
Quotes:
“An absurd position, I know, but if critics insist that he showed us how to live and think and love, then surely he taught us how to run an efficient terror-based revolution and how to commit genocide, too.”
And my first book vlog! This is about Dead Until Dark, one of the books that spawned the True Blood series. Here it is:
More soon! Watch for our video debate series!