Spin (novel)
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Spin is a science fiction novel by author Robert Charles Wilson. It was published in 2005 and won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2006.
Spin details the Earth's response to an articifial membrane placed around the planet which selectively blocks and filters incoming electromagnetic radiation, blocking out the view of anything beyond low earth orbit. The novel is told from the viewpoint of Jason and Diane Lawton, twins of E. D. Lawton (a wealthy industrialist who makes his money from the developing areostat business), and Tyler Dupree, a close childhood friend of Jason and Diane. As children, Jason, Diane, and Tyler witness the dramatic arrival of the "Spin", as the phenomenon comes to be known, when the stars suddenly disappear one night as they are looking at the sky. Initial experiments show that the membrane is permeable, allowing space probes to pass through, but that time outside passes at a highly accelerated rate, roughly 100 million years for every year on earth. Thus within a generation, the surrounding solar system will age 4 billion years, and the Earth will be destroyed by the expanding sun.
The novel follows four primary protagonists, each of whom respond to the Spin, and to the certain knowledge that humanity is doomed, in distinct ways. E.D. founds a low earth satellite company and profits spectacularly. Jason becomes a scientist and devotes himself to trying to understand the "Spin". Diane joins a religious cult who views the Spin as part of God's plan for the end times. Tyler becomes a medical doctor who immerses himself in his work, but suffers through a series of existential crises related to the Spin and its obviously alien purposes. As the novel progresses, the Spin matures toward its final form, ultimately revealing its intended purpose.
"Spin" is an ambitious novel, and both its literary and science fiction aims and allusions are lofty ones. As in Groundhog Day, the plot device is a metaphor for the human experience. What do you do once you grasp your mortality and your insignificant place in the universe? (For Tyler, Jason, and Diane the epiphany comes at the cusp of adolescence, as the sky which had heretofore been a source of wonder becomes a symbol of dread). Each of the protagonists is an archetype for a typical response: materialism, religious zeal, searching for knowledge, or an existentialism bordering on nihilism and despair. On the science fiction side, there are thoughtful allusions to, among other things: Greg Egan's Quarantine (the idea of extraterrestrials "sealing off" the earth with a complex relativistic membrane, and the social impact of the stars "going out"); Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series (the "Hypotheticals" who created the Spin echo Farmer's "Ethicals"); Robert A. Heinlein (there is an enigmatic stranger from Mars); and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (the final scene takes place on a ship sailing to an unknown destination). Tyler's French surname emphasize his similarities and differences with Camus's Meersault, and as in the Stranger, Tyler's reaction to his mother's death is revealing. And every science fiction novel about the end of the world must of course grapple with the issue of the day. In this case, that is the degradation of the environment, but the theme is explored subtly and without preaching.
Wilson is currently working on a new novel, Axis, which is set in the same universe as Spin.
