Hi all,

After hearing about Canadian author Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo win for best novel this year with his book Spin, I decided to buy it and give it a spin (har har.)

I can say that it is one of the better science fiction stories that I have read in quite a few years. At first, I thought it would be a great book, but there were some flaws that downgraded it to merely very good.

The story is in essence a scientific mystery. A group of friends have gathered for a holiday party at a big house in New England one winter and suddenly the stars disappear. Oddly, the sun rises the next morning, but it soon becomes apparent that the Earth is wrapped by some membrane which is quickly dubbed the Spin.

The protagonist of our story is a fellow who is one of the friends who had gathered at the big house for the holiday party. He's a friend of the family who owns the house. They are rich and powerful. Their son is the best friend of our protagonist and he is a genius who is being groomed by his father for greatness. He has a sister who is the target of the romantic intentions of our hero. The entire story of the scientific mystery is told through the eyes of these three.

The great revelation of the Spin is that while the sun is rising and the Earth is rotating, outside the membrane, time is passing at a much, much faster rate, thousands of years to our second. The worry is that as time passes, the sun will grow and Earth will become uninhabitable if the Spin were to disappear. There is great upheaval in society as people try to figure out why this has happened and what the future will hold. Some think it is an act of God. Others believe that aliens have built this artifact, but they don't know for what reason. If it was done by aliens, they are dubbed the Hypotheticals.

I won't reveal more than that because there are many plot twists and intriguing ideas that are introduced into the story by Wilson.

The book reminded me of stories such as Rendezvous with Rama or Gateway in that it reveals mysterious technology seemingly made by aliens, but we never see them and have to figure out what is happening. The book also has a certain end-of-the-world, disaster feel that reminded me of Fritz Lieber's The Wanderer. Interestingly, all three of those books were Hugo winners so these must be popular themes with voters.

I was amused at the many sly references to Canada that Wilson slips into his story. I think this is the only science fiction book that I've ever read that made reference to Outremont.

As I said earlier, this book was very good, but not great. It's strengths were solid, sympathetic characters, an intriguing story concept with interesting twists all written with readable prose. Where it fell down was that it started to drag in the last quarter of the story. It felt to me as if Wilson could have wrapped up the story sooner, but had to pad out the book with a few more chapters. That's not so bad since it was such an enjoyable story, but it wasn't necessary for more my enjoyment of the book.

I'd solidly recommend this book.

Capt. Xerox