Series: Spin #1

I changed my mind. Three stars feels a little too generous for this so I'm going with 2.5.

It's a great concept and wanting to find out what had happened kept me reading. Basically, one night all the stars go out and humanity discovers the entire planet has been enveloped in a weird opaque (-ish) membrane that has a simulated sun but doesn't actually let anyone see through it. And somehow Earth's perception of time has slowed way down with respect to the rest of the solar system. So Wilson invokes crazy physics in an interesting way because the general consensus is that some alien race has done this...for reasons.

So I really wanted to found out more about these "Hypotheticals" (the aliens) and what they had done to the Earth, but I struggled to get through the book because I didn't actually like any of the characters. Tyler was tiresome, Jason was your sort of typical nerd genius, I got tired of E. D., the abusive father (verbal and mental abuse, not physical) real fast, and I had zero patience for Diane's desire to ruin her life by running off to find religion and marry a controlling husband. Tyler's thing for Diane was more pathetic than romantic, and some of what I would have found way more interesting (the stuff that was happening to Jason) got glossed over near the end because Tyler just wasn't around for most of it.

I know Wilson already played the crazy physics card with the Spin membrane but I just couldn't suspend my disbelief very well for the Mars terraforming plan. Mars is just too small for that to work, especially over that kind of time scale. Seriously, you'd lose all the "atmosphere" you liberated unless you repeatedly crashed comets into it, and even then....

But I did want to keep reading, which why I debated between 3 and 2.5 stars.

Previous updates:

5 %

Maybe I'm being picky, but these kids don't seem like they're twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. Yes, the main character is recounting the story from a point in time in the future, but I'm having trouble suspending my disbelief. And not because all of the stars have disappeared.

Perhaps I should look for a book that'll make me less cranky.

For more reviews, check out my blog Craft-Cycle

This story works perfectly as a graphic novel. I love the contrast in characters' appearances in the "real world" vs. The Dark. The artwork is amazing. It is such an interesting contrast between childhood play and actual war.

The plot itself is very interesting. It's kind of like Toy Story if Buzz and Woody went on a murderous rampage to save Andy from a nightmare incarnate. Awesome stuff. 

Cool beginning to the series. I am looking forward to reading the next book. 

Although I'm a longtime fan of Robert Charles Wilson's books, it's been awhile since I last read one of his new novels. While I can't say for certain why (it's been that long), I suspect the Spin saga had something to do with this; I've always felt that the others were unnecessary, and I didn't want to sully my memory of the first one with inferior sequels. Having fallen out of the habit of reading his books, I really didn't feel motivated to pick up the ones that followed.

That changed after reading the description of this one. I'm a sucker for time travel and well-done (i.e. no WWII wank) alternate history, and this one had both intertwined in its premise of modern-day Americans touring their Gilded Age past thanks to a time portal. As I read it, I was reminded of everything I loved about Wilson's books, which mix interesting ideas with well-developed characters and bring the plot to an enjoyably satisfying conclusion. In some ways it reminded me of Paul McAuley's Cowboy Angels, which also offered a mix of the two genres, though far less successfully than Wilson achieves here. While it falls short of my favorite Wilson work, I finished it determined to read the other novels that I missed. It's good to be back.