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Spin (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "Everybody falls, and we all land somewhere..." (more)
Key Phrases: five republics, replicator project, seed launches, Wun Ngo Wen, Big House, Ibu Ina (more...)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking "what if," Wilson (Blind Lake, etc.) builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres. The narrative time oscillates effortlessly between Tyler Dupree's early adolescence and his near-future young manhood haunted by the impending death of the sun and the earth. Tyler's best friends, twins Diane and Jason Lawton, take two divergent paths: Diane into a troubling religious cult of the end, Jason into impassioned scientific research to discover the nature of the galactic Hypotheticals whose "Spin" suddenly sealed Earth in a "cosmic baggie," making one of its days equal to a hundred million years in the universe beyond. As convincing as Wilson's scientific hypothesizing is--biological, astrophysical, medical--he excels even more dramatically with the infinitely intricate, minutely nuanced relationships among Jason, Diane and Tyler, whose older self tries to save them both with medicines from Mars, terraformed through Jason's genius into an incubator for new humanity. This brilliant excursion into the deepest inner and farthest outer spaces offers doorways into new worlds--if only humankind strives and seeks and finds and will not yield compassion for our fellow beings. Agent, Shawna McCarthy. (Apr. 14)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


From Bookmarks Magazine

Spin is not merely a SF thriller. It’s also a coming-of-age tale, a love story, a literary triumph, and an ecological and apocalyptic warning. The award-winning Wilson excels at all aspects of his tale, from the human angle to the political, religious, biological, medical, and astrophysical theorizing. The first part elicited "jaw-dropping amazement" from critics; luckily, the pace slows over the remaining pages to recount the next few decades on Earth (Emerald City). If the plot involving the terraforming and colonization of Mars seems farfetched, put it in the context of Wilson’s deep characterization and convincing relationships, and you’ll be OK. After all, Spin is "a book about faith: especially our faith in ourselves" (Emerald City).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Tor Science Fiction (February 7, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 076534825X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0765348258
  • Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,961 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Robert Charles Wilson
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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Everybody falls, and we all land somewhere. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
five republics, replicator project, seed launches, longevity treatment, expanding sun
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wun Ngo Wen, Big House, Ibu Ina, Jordan Tabernacle, Teluk Bayur, New Kingdom, New Reformasi, Jason Lawton, October Event, Pastor Dan, Capetown Maru, Carol Lawton, Preston Lomax, Port Magellan, Molly Seagram, Brother Aaron, Stony Brook, Homeland Security, Dan Condon, Fourth Age, White House, Bantam Hill Road, Grand Canyon, Simon Townsend, Oort Cloud
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Customer Reviews

140 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (140 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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100 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Completely engrossing, October 21, 2004
By Elisabeth Carey (Lawrence, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Spin (Hardcover)
The time is, if not right now, the reasonably near future. Tyler Dupree is the twelve-year-old son of the housekeeper for a major aerospace industrialist. His best friends are the industrialists' twin children, Diane and Jason Lawton. One evening, when the kids are illicitly outside during an adult party at the Big House, the stars and the moon disappear. All satellite communication, and everything dependent on it, is lost. The sun rises in the morning-but, as scientists subsequently learn, it's not the real sun. Earth has been encased in a membrane, and time on Earth has been dramatically slowed: a minute on Earth, inside the membrane, is a century or more outside. One of the things the membrane is doing is filtering and regulating the sunlight, so Earth continues to experience normal day and night, and seasons.
This phenomenon quickly acquires the popular name "the Spin." The Lawtons' father, E.D., quickly capitalizes on one piece of the disruption caused by it by promoting aerostats as a replacement for the lost satellites. And he grooms his genius son Jason to become the world's greatest expert on the Spin.
The cultural effects of the Spin are more disruptive, at least in the short term. As it becomes clear that the Spin is not any sort of natural phenomenon, there are only two ways of explaining it: either it's a technological phenomenon created by unknown alien beings (the "Hypotheticals"), or it represents the direct action of God. As it becomes clear that the slowing of time on Earth will result in Earth being out of the habitable zone of the sun in fifty or sixty years, the notion that Earth's inhabitants are now living in the End Times becomes obvious and logical. While E.D. continues to do what he has always done (wheel, deal, seize economic and political advantage, emotionally abuse his family) Jason becomes obsessed with understanding the Spin scientifically, Diane joins an ecstatic, hedonistic religious cult called the New Kingdom, and Tyler just tries to get on with his life, going to medical school and becoming a doctor. That's not so easy; Tyler has always been the emotional stabilizer for the more volatile Lawton twins, and they both keep calling on him to fill that role. While Diane moves through the world of End Times religious cults, Jason uses his father's business and political ambitions to build a government agency dedicated to understanding the Spin and, once the Spin membrane is found to be permeable to spacecraft in both directions (but not to signals of any kind), to terraforming Mars to preserve the human race. This works fairly well, until two things happen: it becomes clear to the public that success with the Mars project is not going to save the lives of more than trivial numbers of people on Earth, and the Spin membrane starts flickering, an apparent prelude to breaking down entirely as aging Sol, now reaching the end of its life, expands.
This is a beautifully written, completely engrossing book. I've occasionally complained that Wilson's books don't have entirely satisfactory endings; this one does. Highly recommended.
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78 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Your average excellent Robert Charles Wilson novel, December 9, 2004
By Chris Lee Mullins (Highlands Ranch, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Spin (Hardcover)
I managed to snag an advanced copy of this novel last week, which I finished in about a day and a half reading during lunch breaks, bathroom breaks and the hours before bedtime. As per usual, Wilson does an excellent job of keeping me up at night.

For those who are familiar with Robert Charles Wilson's work, "Spin" should come as no surprise. Most of his novels feature a conflicted protagonist who is caught up in storms of intrigue and extraordinary circumstances. Wilson's stories typically focus 70% on the characters and 30% on the science. His characters walk away from these experiences utterly changed, for better or for worse. Their arcs aren't always pleasant but usually realistic. You could easily put yourself into their shoes.

"Spin" is no exception.

As the previous reviewer pointed out, Wilson's one weakness is his endings. The endings are usually a rush to tie together loose ends, explain away anything that wasn't properly explained before. "Blind Lake" fell into this trap. "The Chronoliths" did not. Thankfully, "Spin" falls into the latter catagory.
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39 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars "Spin" spins, sometimes in place, February 21, 2007
Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin" tells the tale of the earth being cloaked in a time-warping membrane, put in place by unknown entities. It's also the tale of Tyler Dupree and his privileged best friends, twins born to the couple his mother works for as a maid.

The story weaves the past and the present, starting with Tyler's early life with his mother in a small guesthouse across the lawn from the big house. That's where the twins, Jason and Diane, reside uneasily with their powerful and sometimes cruel father and withdrawn, alcoholic mother.

One night the three youngsters sit talking on the lawn, peering in at a grown-ups' party in the big house. Suddenly, the moon and the stars are no longer visible. They're blocked by the membrane, which is quickly dubbed the Spin.

After that, the story becomes a search for knowledge.

The world wants to know the meaning of the Spin. Tyler wants to know his place in the world. To understand that, he must also understand his relationship with the twins. There's Jason, whose brilliance and hunger to know who put the Spin in place astound Tyler. And there's Diane, whose search for redemption breaks his heart.

This is also where "Spin" starts spinning in place. Does it want to be a science-fiction tale whose main characters come of age? Or a coming of age tale that takes place in a science-fiction setting? It's as if Wilson wants both, and as a result, almost ends up with neither.

There are compelling facets to "Spin," but there are also long passages where the story is beautifully worded, yet the action is plodding.

The ending could've been interesting had it been built to more quickly, and it's not a big enough payoff for the effort we go through to stick with the main characters as they struggle through life.

Those of you who want a fast-paced, simpler story should look elsewhere. Those of you who want great literature should also look elsewhere. Those of you who want to read something by a talented author we'll be hearing from again and again should read "Spin," mostly for its innovative ideas.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A plausible and realistic science fiction
Spin was a hard concept for me to take in when I was considering reading it. I couldn't imagine how or what was going to be written about and why was it a science fiction. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Brian Hawkinson

1.0 out of 5 stars More a romance novel with bit of science around the edges
The traditional definition of Science Fiction requires that the Science be an integral part of the Fiction. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Kelly Howard

3.0 out of 5 stars narrator being not-quite-main character gives interesting perspective
The interesting concept of this time-travel book is that the entire Earth is time traveling. (I always wondered about the Earth being quarantined by some outside force. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Jamie Beu

2.0 out of 5 stars Good character development, boring story
I recently received the book, and all books I get I read at least 100 pages to see if the story captivates me. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Shane Lindsley

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliantly crafted novel by Robert Charles Wilson
Spin is a well written novel that follows the lives of three characters, Tyler Dupree, and Jason and Diane Lawton, as they grow up and live in the era of an enigmatic crisis that... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Chad S. Groen

5.0 out of 5 stars Super Easy to Read
I loved this book and read it very quickly. The characters are very 3-dimensional and the huge plot-line is engrossing. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kwisatz Haderach

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sun Is Not the Same in a Relative Way
Winner of the 2006 Hugo Award, Charles R. Wilson's book is superb, and is a deserved winner of that best science fiction novel of the year award. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Antinomian

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Engrossing
Some books you can tell are inspired by the author starting with a simple "what if". In this case, the "what if" is "what if one night all the stars just disappeared?" . Read more
Published 1 month ago by Joeomar

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent
Stephen King wasnt kidding when he said Robert Charles Wilson is a hell of a story teller
and writer. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Angel Rapallo

5.0 out of 5 stars Page-turner
I read the sequel Axis first, only because it was available at the library and Spin wasn't. Now I await the conclusion, tentatively titled Vortex. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dick Stanley

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