Greg Egan ’s next novel , The Clockwork Rocket , take place in a universe where the laws of physics are different … and if a space vehicle travels fast enough , its journey takes no prison term for those left behind , but decade for those aboard .
The Clockwork Rocket is the first book of the Orthogonal trilogy , and it comes out in late 2011 or early 2012.Here ’s Egan ’s summary of it :
When Yalda was almost three years old , she was entrust with the job of bearing her grandfather into the wood to convalesce .
Dario had been weak and dispirited for days , refuse to move from the flower bed where the family sleep . Yalda had seen him this mode before , but it had never lasted so long . Her Padre had sent word to the village , and when Doctor Livia came to the farm to examine him Yalda and two of her cousins , Claudia and Claudio , stayed nigh to find out the proceedings .
After squeezing and prod the old man all over with more hands than most people used in a day , Doctor Livia denote her diagnosis . “ You ’re suffering from a serious lightsome deficiency . The crops here are virtually homochromatic ; your body postulate a broader spectrum of illumination . ”
“ Ever heard of sunlight ? ” Dario reply vitriolically .
“ Sunlight is far too blue , ” Doctor Livia anticipate , “ too fast for the dead body to catch . And the light from the fields is all torpid reddened . What you ’re lacking Lie between those extremes ; a man of your age require umber and gamboge , saffron and goldenrod , jade and viridian . ”
In Yalda ’s existence , brightness has no universal speed and its creation generate muscularity .
On Yalda ’s world , plants make food by give off their own Inner Light into the dark night sky .
As a child Yalda see one of a series of unknown meteor , the Hurtlers , that are entering the planetary organisation at an immense , unprecedented speed . It becomes seeming that her world is in at hand risk – and that the project of dealing with the Hurtlers will postulate knowledge and engineering science far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved .
Only one root seems tenable : if a space vehicle can be sent on a journey at sufficiently gamy velocity , its trip will last many generations for those on board , but it will return after just a few geezerhood have passed at home . The traveller will have a chance to attain the science their planet desperately needs , and bring it back in metre to avert disaster .
Orthogonal is the story of Yalda and her descendants , trying to survive the perils of their long mission and carve out meaningful lives for themselves , while the scourge of obliteration hang over the world they left behind .
And rightful to Egan ’s geeky nature , there’sa Sir Frederick Handley Page where he explains the math behind this altered set of forcible laws , complete with diagram and equations .
Rocket simulacrum via3Yen.com
[ Greg Egan , viaJonathan Strahan on Twitter ]
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