Ring (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "Even at the moment she was born she knew something was wrong..." (more)
Key Phrases: photino birds, maintenance bulkhead, discontinuity drive, Arrow Maker, Michael Poole, Solar System (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Michael Poole's wormholes constructed in the orbit of Jupiter had opened the galaxy to humankind. Then Poole tried looping a wormhole back on itself, tying a knot in space and ripping a hole in time.

It worked. Too well.

Poole was never seen again. Then from far in the future, from a time so distant that the stars themselves were dying embers, came an urgent SOS--and a promise. The universe was doomed, but humankind was not. Poole had stumbled upon an immense artifact, light-years across, fabricated from the very string of the cosmos.

The universe had a door. And it was open...

About the Author

A two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and recipient of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Stephen Baxter has also been a Hugo nominee as well as the winner of numerous other literary prizes for his novels and short fiction. A trained engineer who took a first-class honors degree in mathematics at Cambridge University, he also has a doctorate in aeroengineering research from Southhampton University. He is the author of eleven science fiction novels and four novels for young adults. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Eos; Reissue edition (April 25, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061056944
• ISBN-13: 978-0061056949
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #133,002 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard SF on the grand scale, November 17, 1998

By	Thomas O. Gray "tomgray" (Norwich, VT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hard SF the way it can and should be written. Baxter creates well-drawn and interesting characters and sets them loose on an adventure of truly mind-boggling scale. I haven't read any of his stuff before, but that's gonna change, now! "Ring" reminds me most of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars," which won a well-deserved Hugo Award. It's positively bursting with well-thought-out and captivating speculation and extrapolation, and most of the time I was reading, I just kept shaking my head in amazement at the scope of the ideas. You may learn more about stellar physics or superstring theory than you'd like to, but hey, that's hard SF, and Baxter does a good job of keeping the science understandable. "Ring" occasionally drags a bit, but not for long, and I guarantee it will expand your mental horizons.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The REAL Lord of The Ring, January 24, 2006

By	Some Guy (Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews

is not Frodo, not even Sauron, but... the Xeelee?

I must admit that this books is more "The Silmarillion" than the LOTR trilogy: a lot of plain and descriptive narrative and lecutures-disguised-as-dialogue, not much engaging drama and action. Very tasty, in a super crunchy and chewy way, if you are into that stuff (like me); if not, well... But then again, I ask myself: for a book with a plot on such a scale, is any human drama viable? To give just one example: two factions are fighting a war in the universe. One of them hurls projectiles at the other as weapons of war. Their projectile of choice? Galaxies.

Yeah, it's THAT kind of big.

On such a scale, I think nobody, not Tolkien, not Shakespear, not even Homer can possibly write an effective human drama. We are simply too puny and utterly irrelevant. Everything that constitutes "normal" human drama -- ambition, betrayal, religion, politics, sex, power, romance, murder, conspriacy, utopia and dystopia, even life and death -- appears so insignificant that they are almost preposterous.

"Ring" may not be the finest science fiction, but it surely is scientific speculation on the grandest possible scale. There is just nothing else like it. Its "flaws," I believe, are unavoidable simply because our literature has not evolved beyond a time when 70 years is a pretty long life, and a transcontinental plane flight counts as distant travel. If and when, one day, our descendants can actually hop along the faultlines of spacetime at a pace of thousands of years and/or light-years a second, we may have an effective literature for this stuff. For now, Ring is as good as it gets.

P.S.: My admiration for this book notwithstanding, I'm still not sure why the photino birds want to turn out the lights; and just exactly what's up with Michael Poole? Strings and loose ends just shouldn't go together, you know? =)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Depressing and Beautiful, December 11, 2002

By	Daniel McCollum "Dan McCollum" (Kipnuk, AK (formerly Wausau, WI)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Science Fiction has fallen into a woeful state in recent years. A quick glance at the local bookstore will see the shelves chuck full of unimaginative fantasy noveles and long sections of Star Trek, Star Wars, BattleTech books. I have begun to stray away from this side of the bookstore, simply because I have begun to find is depressing.
And yet, all hope is not lost! Upon a recent trip to the store I found a novel by Stephen Baxter entitled "The Ring". I had heard good things mentioned about him in the past and figured I might as well check the author out.
I bought the book and, several days alter, was finaly able to peel myself away from it. "Ring" is hard-science fiction at its best, tons of theoretical science mixed with characters who we can truly care about as well as descriptive language which still makes the hair on the back of my arm stand up. Baxter's description of the dying solar system still haunts me when I think about it.
Buy this book! At the very least its better than "Star Trek: The Mystery of Kirk's Hair".