Twistor

by John Cramer, Gene Wolfe (Introduction)

Overview

"True hard science fiction—deftly done, with plenty of fine surprises." — Gregory Benford.
"Twistor marks the arrival of a major new science-fiction talent." — Gene Wolfe.
"A fine hard science thriller, very enjoyable." — Greg Bear.
Research scientist David Harrison happens upon the "twistor effect," a phenomenon that opens doors into countless alternate universes. The discovery's potential for unlimited power draws the attention of industrial spies and corporate killers, driving Dr. Harrison to seek sanctuary in a mysterious shadow world—a place of both wonder and danger, with no certain way out.
Written by a professional physicist, this gripping novel of hard science fiction offers a captivating adventure as well as fascinating glimpses at the business of science, from the demands of university life and the politics intrinsic to academic funding to the complex interplay between pure research and commercial applications. An Afterword provides insights into the distinctions between real science and fictional speculation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486804507
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	06/20/2016
Series:	Dover Literature: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

A Professor of Physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, John G. Cramer also works at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory and at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to his many scientific publications, he writes a regular column for Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.

Read an Excerpt

WEDNESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 6

The towers and battlements of Physics Hall shone wetly in the morning light filtering through the Seattle drizzle. The structure would have been well suited for shooting arrows and pouring boiling oil down upon some horde of barbarians, were any so foolish as to venture onto the campus of the University of Washington to besiege Physics Hall.

On its north and east sides the 1920s yellow-brown brick structure was embraced by the Suzzalo Library, a gothic pseudo-cathedral of arching marble and stained glass, straining along its angled length to contain its overburden of books as it metamorphosed into Bauhaus glass and concrete at its southeastern terminus. Physics Hall stretched north to south along Rainier Vista, a broad walkway so aligned that when the Seattle weather cooperated it looked out across a large circular pool and fountain past the cityscape of Capitol Hill to a stunning view of Mount Rainier some eighty-five miles to the southeast.

But this particular October morning the sky was overcast, and a light rain dampened the walkway. The arching water plumes of the fountain were absent, leaving only a dark circular pool that reflected the ragged downslope of Capitol Hill, its indistinct edge shading into grayness in the space where giant Rainier belonged. The giant's absence was ignored by the interweaving of bicycles and quick-stepping students on Rainier Vista.

Inside Physics Hall the activities of the morning were beginning to build as the outflow of milling and chattering undergraduates, their eight-thirty classes just ended, diffused from the large upstairs lecture halls to collide with the inflow of nine-thirty replacements. But behindthe closed doors on the ground floor, within the long rectangular lab oratory rooms, a calmer, more focused atmosphere prevailed. Here, carefully tended by faculty and the most recent generation of graduate students and postdocs, were ongoing long-term experiments that might reveal more about the inner workings of the universe, or at least provide the basis for a Ph. D. thesis or a respectable journal publication.

Behind one glass-paneled door an arcane array of hardware imprisoned a single atom of antimatter, a nucleus made of antiprotons and antineutrons and surrounded by a swarm of positrons. The anti-atom, created at a large accelerator in Geneva, had been carefully imported to Seattle riding in its own electromagnetic trap. It had been held here for over a year, while ever-changing probes extracted secrets of the symmetries between matter and antimatter. In another room a coherent beam of X-rays was meticulously mapping the arrangements of a single layer of atoms clinging to a cold graphite surface, the holographic interference patterns revealing unsuspected regularities and geometrical connections in their configurations. Behind another door a gleaming, rainbowed laser disk spun within its drive. Its data stream, beamed down from an orbiting telescope and captured in plastic, aluminum, and gold, was now with systematic reconstruction yielding an emerging vista, a giant galaxy suspended in the act of a violent explosion that had occurred over a billion years ago. And in another laboratory room just down the corridor, a doorway on another universe was about to open . . . .

What People are Saying About This

Poul Anderson

An exciting story that employs concepts even more exciting...John Cramer's distinguished career as a physicist enables him to give this novel a ring of authenticity, not only scientific but human.

Gregory Benford

True hard science fiction -- deftly done with plenty of fine surprises.