SUMMERTIDE I (The Heritage Universe, Book 1) [Hardcover]

Charles Sheffield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 1990 | Series: The Heritage Universe, Book 1

It was just before Summertide, the time when the twin planets, Opal and Quake, would orbit closest to their sun, subjecting both -- but Quake in particular -- to vast tidal forces. And it was to be the most violent Summertide ever, due to the Grand Conjunction of the system's stars and planets, something that happened only every 350,000 years.
Access to the unstable Quake was supposed to be prohibited, but some very insistent travelers were determined to make the trip. Professor Darya Lang, who had made a career studying artifacts left by the long-vanished aliens called the Builders, had a hunch that during this unusal Summertide she might find the Builders themselves. Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H'sial had their own interests in Quake, and would do anything to get there. And Councilor Julius Graves was hunting murderers -- if they were hiding on Quake, he needed no one's permission to search for them.
Planetary Administrators Hans Rebka and Max Perry had no choice but to go to Quake themselves -- risking their lives to protect the others -- and to learn, just maybe, the secret of Summertide and the Builders . . .
"A well-made puzzle story in the manner of Arthur C. Clarke's Rama books." -- The New York Times

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This promising first installment of the projected Heritage Universe series stands on its own, even though many threads are left dangling. In A.D. 6219, mankind has spread across the galaxy, discovering two other star-traveling races and 1236 artifacts, from three to 10 million years old, left by beings known as the Builders. Now one person from each race has detected clues that might lead to another artifact, or perhaps even to the Builders themselves. Conflicts among the three races fuel most of the plot. Wishing to keep the findings secret, their respective governments provide only covert aid--a device Sheffield ( Between the Strokes of Night ) may have employed to justify the small size of his cast, six members of which will clearly be the main characters in future series volumes.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

While the twin planets of Opal and Quake prepare for the violent season of Summertide, two planetary administrators investigate the reasons behind a tenacious group of visitors' sudden interest in the ancient artifact that serves as an "umbilical" connection between the two worlds. Political intrigue, mystery, and fast-paced action highlight this hard sf novel, the first in a series by the author of Proteus Unbound. For most sf collections.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 257 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (January 20, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345360389
• ISBN-13: 978-0345360380
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,278,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun, captivating, and suspensful classic scifi adventure., September 10, 1997

By 

John D. Ensworth (Springfield,) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summertide (The Heritage Universe) (Mass Market Paperback)

This story explores a detailed universe that you only get a taste of in this first of four books. Each chapter makes you yearn for the discoveries to come in the next, and the book as a whole makes you eager to learn about the rest of the 'mysterious artifacts'. The characters are fairly well developed with a hint of romantic interest here and there. The story centers on the action and a relentless countdown to the event the book is named after; "Summertide". I haven't had a book stay on my mind between readings like this in a while. I'm ordering the next three books so I can continue with the characters and artifacts introduced in this book as soon as possible. It was a fun escape into a well developed future universe.

5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling read, December 2, 2011

By 

Dick Stanley (Austin, TX, United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Summertide (The Heritage Universe) (Mass Market Paperback)

This far-future sci-fi novel is almost twenty years old but it was new to me.

Good stuff, about multiple human colonies, and friendly and enemy aliens in the spiral arm of the Milky Way, all trying to make sense of gigantic Builder artifacts that seem to electromagnetically converge on the planet Quake at Summertide.

The only odd part, especially for the late author Sheffield who usually wrote hard sci-fi, was the superluminal travel via Bose Nodes, apparently some sort of piggyback off the Bose-Einstein quantum phenomenon.

But it isn't explained and so it's wave-of-the-hand technology more commonly found in space opera. Nevertheless, it was a thrilling read and I commend the tale to you and have already bought the sequels for myself.

3.0 out of 5 stars Middling at best, May 24, 2004

By 

jeremy Sammons (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summertide (Mass Market Paperback)

I just finished reading all four books in this series. I read them mostly because of the ideas that were presented, knowing pretty clearly after the first book that character depth and presentation isn't the author's strong point.

Good: The artifacts are interesting and unique, and present a great backdrop of the story that Sheffield is telling. He also has a great description of the aliens and presents them interestingly enough.

Bad: It was quite hard to care about these characters. They seemed like caricatures more than people, and they didnt seem real to me...they were mostly stereotypical, especially the characters presnted in the last two books. These people are in the middle of events of epic proportions on a galactic scale, but they repeatedly acted with only their own interests in mind. Which brings me to my main gripe...The plot focused only on the charactures, and you never got a sense that the rest of the galactic arm cared about what was going on. I cant help but compare books like this to Hyperion and its sequels, and these books pale in comparison. I felt like I was reading a Piers Anthony space epic. Decent fun, not a bad read, but could have been so much better. And the secret to the Builders was cool, I must admit.