- Niven, Larry and Matthew Joseph Harrington.
The Goliath Stone.
New York: Tor Books, 2013.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3323-0.
-
This novel is a tremendous hoot which the authors undoubtedly had
great fun writing and readers who know what's going on may
thoroughly enjoy while others who don't get it may be disappointed.
This story, which spans a period from 5 billion years before the
present to A.D. 2052 chronicles the
expansion of sentient life beyond the Earth and humankind's first
encounter with nonhuman beings. Dr. Toby Glyer, pioneer in
nanotechnology, arranges with a commercial space launch company
to send a technologically opaque payload into space. After
launch, it devours the orbital stage which launched it
and disappears. Twenty-five years later, a near-Earth asteroid is
detected as manoeuvring itself onto what may be a collision
course with Earth, and fears spread of Glyer's asteroid retrieval mission,
believed to involve nanotechnology, having gone horribly wrong.
Meanwhile, distinctly odd things are happening on Earth: the
birth rate is falling dramatically, violent crime is way down
while suicides have increased, terrorism seems to have come
to an end, and test scores are rising everywhere. Athletes
are shattering long-established records with wild abandon,
and a disproportionate number of them appear to be
American Indians. Glyer and space launch entrepreneur May
Wyndham sense that eccentric polymath William Connors,
who they last knew as a near-invalid a quarter century
earlier, may be behind all of this, and soon find themselves
inside Connors' secretive lair.
This is an homage to golden age science fiction where an
eccentric and prickly genius decides to remake the world
and undertakes to do so without asking permission from anybody.
The story bristles with dozens if not hundreds of references
to science fiction and fandom, many of which I'm sure I missed.
For example, “CNN cut to a feed with Dr. Wade Curtis,
self-exiled to Perth when he'd exceeded the federal age limit
on health care.” Gentle readers, start your search engines!
If you're looking for “hard” science fiction like
Niven's
“Known Space”,
this is not your book. For a romp through the near future which
recalls the
Skylark
novels of
“Doc” Smith,
with lots of fannish goodies and humourous repartee among the
characters, it's a treat.
October 2013 