Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia, Limited Edition (Hardcover)

by George Zebrowski (Author)
Key Phrases: Richard Bulero, Ganymede City, Samuel Bulero (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Subtitled, A Mobile Utopia, this pioneering novel about the meaning of space habitats for human history, presents spacefaring as no work did in its time, and since. A utopian novel like no other, presenting a dynamic utopian civilization that transcends the failures of our history.

Epic in scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The bulero family owns one of Earth's richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into a crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife--mobile, self-reproducing space habitats.

A millennium later, these mobile communities have left our sunspace and multiplied. Conflicts with natural planets arise. John Bulero, a cloned descendant of the twenty-first century Bulero clan, falls in love with a woman from a natural world and experiences the harshness of her way of life. He rediscovers his roots when his mobile returns to the solar system, and a tense confrontation of three civilizations takes place.

One hundred billion years later, macrolife, now as numerous as the stars, faces the impending death of nature. Regaining his individuality by falling away from a highly evolved macrolife, a strangely changed John Bulero struggles to see beyond a collapse of the universe into a giant black hole.

Inspired by the possibilities of space settlements, projections of biology and cosmology, and basic human longings, Macrolife is a visionary speculation on the long-term future of human and natural history. Filled with haunting images and memorable characters, this is a vivid and brilliant work.

About the Author
George Zebrowski’s forty books include novels, short-fiction collections, anthologies, and a book of essays. His works have appeared in all the science fiction magazines, as well as in Omni, Nature, Popular Computing, and the Bertrand Russell Society News. Arthur C. Clarke described Macrolife as "a worthy successor to Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker. It’s been years since I was so impressed. One of the few books I intend to read again." Library Journal listed Macrolife as one of the one hundred best science fiction novels, and The Easton Press published it in its "Masterpieces of Science Fiction" series. Cave of Stars, a recent novel, also belongs to the Macrolife mosaic. Zebrowski’s works have been translated into eight languages; his short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Brute Orbits, an uncompromising novel about a future penal system, was honored with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1999.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 385 pages
• Publisher: Pyr (January 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591023408
• ISBN-13: 978-1591023401
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,945,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, November 30, 2007

By	Blue Tyson "- http://freesf.blogspot.com" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia (Paperback)

Shell houses in space.

A book that manages to be ahead of its time and retro at the same time.

Ian Watson's claims of how good it is in the intro may be overstating the case a bit, though, in this new version.

It is interesting, though, but a lot of highly philosophical discussion which some people maybe find a tad dry. If some of that Wells or Stapledon stuff is not liked by you, you could probably skip this one, too, apart from the first section of three, all set in different eras.

Basically, a family invents a substance that allows immense buildings due to its strength, but discovers it has subatomic explosive flaws that need working out.

Later on, humans have expanded into space, and to the end of time.

The latter section is rather annoying in that it has immense passages all in italics, an these are prefaced with :: type quotation marks to indicate one of the strange end of time intelligences is speaking, to start with. Very bloody annoying.

A book that is worth a look, though, for considering a Utopian type vision in the tradition of those authors mentioned above, or even Clarke, who is also mentioned throughout. Should definitely appeal to those who like these gentlemen.

There is a lengthy afterword by the author detailing how the book came to be, and his thought processes in coming up with it over a lengthy period of time. Length is also what you would call Watson's introduction.


3.5 out of 5

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars reprint of a fabulous cerebral outer space thriller , February 18, 2006

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 2021 the apparently recently discovered durable element bulerite becomes the prime material in construction on earth and in space. That is until bulerite proves unstable leading to biblical destruction; millions die along with the death of the planet.

The only hope for survivors is in space as we finally killed earth with technological progress. Those who escape into other areas of the solar system begin building habitats inside hollow asteroids. By 3000 (earth calendar) the new mobile environments that serve as home to the exiled earthlings lead to radical changes in society and prove once and for all evolution rules; eventually those mobile space residence comes into contact with planet bound life as they revolve around the galaxy. Perhaps a billion years into the future humanity and its macrolife existence has turned into mini mobile utopias, but now confront the first pandemic threat since the death of earth, the death of the galaxy

This is a reprint of a fabulous cerebral outer space thriller that seems even more relevant today than its 1979 release thanks to the recent debate between intelligent design vs. evolution and the administration attack on science; for instance a censuring of a NASA science report deletes reference to our sun dying in 5 billion years as being too depressing. The novel contains a new introduction and pictures, but the prime story line told in three ages over the eons remains the same and as puissant as ever. Each of the periods, 2021, 3000, and "The Dream of Time" provide a deep look at humanity where it was, where it is, and where it is going through the cycle of one family, the Bulero brood. George Zebrowski provides a thought provoking winner that remains pertinent today.

Harriet Klausner