by Greg Bear (Author)
Do you dream of a city at the end of time? In a time like the present, on a world that may or may not be our own, three young people-Ginny, Jack, and Daniel-dream of a fabulous, decadent city in the distant future: the Kalpa. The dreams of Ginny and Jack overtake them without warning, leaving their bodies behind while carrying their consciousnesses forward, into the minds of two inhabitants of the Kalpa-a would-be warrior, Jebrassy, and an inquisitive explorer, Tiadba-who have been genetically retroengineered to possess qualities of ancient humanity. In turn, the dreams of Tiadba and Jebrassy carry them back, into the minds of Jack and Ginny. As for Daniel: he dreams of an empty darkness--all his future holds. But more than dreams link Ginny, Jack, and Daniel. They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip like stones across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And they are each guardians of an object whose origins and purpose are unknown, a gnarled, stony artifact called a sum-runner that persists unchanged through all versions of time. They can save the future, but they are being hunted down.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 480
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 17 Jul 2008
ISBN 10: 0575081880
ISBN 13: 9780575081888
Book Overview: As with Dan Simmons' ILIUM this marks the return of a world recognised master of the genre to SF The author of the groundbreaking pinnacle of 80's SF EON Dan Simmons has two novels on the SF Masterworks list. Greg Bear is a multi-Award winning author One of the few SF writers capable of following where Olaf Stapledon led, beyond the limits of human ambition and geological time Locus Arthur C. Clarke has his most formidable rival yet The Times