We have polysign!
Apr. 23rd, 2003 05:47 pmThe book I just finished reading, The Chronoliths, by Robert Charles Wilson, actually mentioned polyamory - almost in passing. The actual phrase was "we're nonmonogamous...polyamorous". That from a main character, Sue Chopra. Of course she was referring to her *female* lover - she's a lesbian. Which was cool in itself...especially because there wasn't any gratuitous girl-girl sex action, but her being gay was integral to developing her character and the way she interacted with the other main characters.
The book is about the strange & mystifying appearance of huge monoliths and statues at various locations around the world, honoring a war leader named "Kuin". In many cases, they appear right in the middle of a city, with devastating effects. They're arriving from 20 years in the future, and with their arrival is a tornado-like effect of wind and a severe thermal shock, freezing everything nearby.
There's fascinating theory in this book - about how time-travel into the past could be possible, and without paradox or many-worlds branching. How proximity to the appearance of a chronolith creates "tau turbulence" which then creates coincidence "eddies" - currents in spacetime which tend to bring those caught in the tau-turbulence together in seemingly coincidental ways. Kind've like the synchronicity in The Celestine Prophecy but externally produced or shaped. The tau turbulence also plays havoc with cause-and-effect sequencing.
My only gripe is that it ended too briefly - there should've been more detail on what happened *after* the events of the main part of the story...ie what happened 20 years in the future. But maybe he'll write a sequel.
On to the next book, David Brin - Kiln People
The book is about the strange & mystifying appearance of huge monoliths and statues at various locations around the world, honoring a war leader named "Kuin". In many cases, they appear right in the middle of a city, with devastating effects. They're arriving from 20 years in the future, and with their arrival is a tornado-like effect of wind and a severe thermal shock, freezing everything nearby.
There's fascinating theory in this book - about how time-travel into the past could be possible, and without paradox or many-worlds branching. How proximity to the appearance of a chronolith creates "tau turbulence" which then creates coincidence "eddies" - currents in spacetime which tend to bring those caught in the tau-turbulence together in seemingly coincidental ways. Kind've like the synchronicity in The Celestine Prophecy but externally produced or shaped. The tau turbulence also plays havoc with cause-and-effect sequencing.
My only gripe is that it ended too briefly - there should've been more detail on what happened *after* the events of the main part of the story...ie what happened 20 years in the future. But maybe he'll write a sequel.
On to the next book, David Brin - Kiln People