Neverness: 1 (The Neverness Cycle) - Softcover

Zindell, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1522798382 ISBN 13: 9781522798385

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

The price of greater life is death . . . . In an age of exploding stars and other cataclysmic galactic events in which Homo sapiens has long since split into different kinds, Mallory Ringess becomes a pilot of the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame. His quest to find the Elder Eddas - nothing less than the secret of life embroidered in humanity's oldest DNA - will lead him from Neverness's streets of colored ice into the deadly manifold, the "space beneath space" whose topology writhes and twists with hideous complexity like a nest of psychedelic snakes. Journeying in his lightship The Immanent Carnation far across the Milky Way, Mallory enters the Solid State Entity, a nebula-sized brain composed of moonlike biocomputers analogous to neurons. There is he tested; there he asks about the Ieldra, a mythical race of aliens said to have seeded the galaxy with its DNA eons before and to have initiated the evolutionary cycle. Mallory returns to Neverness with the conviction that the Elder Eddas may be found among the Alaloi tribes, whose genes have been "back-mutated" to give the Alaloi the appearance of Neanderthals. A continuation of Mallory's quest will take him to these ancient people and see him bludgeoned to death, cryogenically frozen, then resurrected as half man, half biocomputer - kin of sorts to the Solid State Entity. In the war that follows, he will be asked to discard the last vestiges of humanity in return for mankind's ultimate salvation. Only in the novel's final pages will Mallory finally grasp the infinite possibilities of evolution and thereby change the course of the universe. "Spectacular world-making" - The Times "Ideas splash out of Zindell's mind and flow across the pages of this book - yet the action doesn't stop for them. Rather the ideas pick up the story and sweep it along . . . a brilliant novel. I wish I had written this book." - Orson Scott Card "A thick, lush, vivid, panoramic view of evolved humans in

About this title

Review:

‘Zindell makes you think’
New Scientist

‘Philip K. Dick would have been proud to conjure up such philiosophies’
Manchester Evening News

‘A thick, lush, vivid, panoramic view of evolved humans in an evolving universe far in the future’
Twilight Zone

‘Excellent hard science fiction... a brilliant novel’
Orson Scott Card, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

From the Back Cover:

THE PRICE OF GREATER LIFE IS DEATH...

The universe of 'Neverness' is intriguingly complex and filled with extraordinary beings. There are the Alaloi, whose genes have 'backmutated' so that they look like Neanderthals.. the Order of Pilots which reworks the laws of time and physics to slingshot its members through dense regions of 'thickspace'... the Solid State Entity, a nebula-sized brain made up of moon-sized biocomputers... and the leldra, a legendary race of aliens that seeded the galaxy aeons ago with its DNA and so initiated the evolutionary cycle.

Against this rich backdrop unfolds the story of Mallory Ringess, a headstrong novitiate of the Order of Pilots. Against all odds, he has penetrated the Solid State Entity – and made a stunning discovery. A discovery that could unlock the secret of immortality hidden among the Alaloi. But first he will lead a perilous quest through uncharted regions of thickspace where he will be asked to undergo the ultimate sacrifice: to discard the last vestiges of humanity in return for mankind's salvation...

'A thick, lush, vivid, panoramic view of evolved humans in an evolving universe far in the future'
TWILIGHT ZONE

'Excellent hard science fiction...a brilliant novel'
ORSON SCOTT CARD, 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'

'A victorious book, lingering and lithe and rich'
JOHN CLUTE, 'Interzone'

'One of the finest talents to appear since Kim Stanley Robinson and William Gibson – perhaps the finest'
GENE WOLFE

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1522798382
• ISBN 13: 9781522798385
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 617