Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

One of the most amazing works of science fiction I've ever read. After this book, I will argue that Wilson is right up there with Wolfe, Benford, and Asimov, men who wrote not just science fiction, but literature. I was highly impressed with Wilson for Darwinia. Spin easily tops that book. Perhaps it's his style, but with both these books you don't find out what's going on until nearly the very end, M. Night Shyamalan style, and it really blows your mind.

The simple outline of the story is that one night, three young friends are outside stargazing. They watch as, simultaneously, all the stars disappear. The rest of their lives end up being shaped by this event. The Spin (as it comes to be called), is a shield that moderates solar radiation, showing them a false image of the sun which serves the function of the original. People find out very soon that the Earth has been slowed down in a separate timeframe from the rest of the universe. On Earth, for every second that passes, three years pass outside the shield.

The question why is the one operative of this novel, and it's enough to drive all the events that happen as various people deal with what they view as the impending end of the world (as the sun expands they expect it to engulf the Earth). This book, although it contains some very radical science fiction, also contains a great deal of human interest (something Wilson excels at). It's very much like Great Sky River in that regard. It's something for even non-genre lovers to read.

Wilson does not disappoint with the explanation behind the events in the book, but you have to wait unbearably long for the payoff. The story is told from the point of view of Tyler, the youngest of the three friends. The way he tells the story is in flashbacks all throughout, although that's not quite what I'd call it since they're separate chapters, not part of the narrative. He gives the current year as 4*10^9 AD (4,000,000,000 AD), with the beginning of the story starting somewhere around our time. Tyler observes as Jason becomes obsessed with understanding the Spin and as Dianne (Jason's sister and Tyler's love interest) becomes obsessed with denying it.

That part of the story is fairly interesting, although I just got tired of Dianne's whining and denial. Still, it's not a letdown, although perhaps Wilson would have been better off by cutting that down a little. All in all, it's just a good read and a great story.