Paradox: Book One of the Nulapieron Sequence - Softcover

Meaney, John

3.73

430 ratings by Goodreads

9781591024972: Paradox: Book One of the Nulapieron Sequence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591024978 ISBN 13: 9781591024972

Publisher: Prometheus Books, 2006

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Centuries of self-imposed isolation have transformed Nulapeiron into a world unlike any other - a world of vast subterranean cities maintained by extraordinary organic technologies. For the majority of its peoples, however such wonders have little meaning. Denied their democratic rights and restricted to the impoverished lower levels, they are subjected to the brutal law of the Logic Lords and the Oracles, supra-human beings whose ability to truecast the future maintains the status quo. But all this is about to change. In a crowded marketplace a mysterious, beautiful woman is brutally cut down by a militia squad's graser fire. Amongst the horrified onlookers is young Tom Corcorigan. He recognizes her. Only the previous day she had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. And only now, as the fire in the dying stranger's obsidian eyes fades, does he comprehend who - or what - she really was: a figure from legend, one of the fabled Pilots. What Tom has still to discover is that his crystal holds the key to understanding mu-space, and so to freedom itself. He doesn't know it yet, but he has been given a destiny to fulfill - nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world... Spectacularly staged, thrillingly written and set in a visionary future, Paradox places John Meaney at the forefront of science fiction in this new century.

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Review:

John Meaney received much praise and a British SF Association Award shortlisting for his first novel To Hold Infinity (1998), full of clever new SF ideas and ingenious twists on old ones.Paradox is his second.

The setting is Nulapeiron, a many levelled world of exotic underground cities where the lower classes are literally kept below by a meritocracy of intellectual Lords. Change is forbidden, perhaps impossible: the barely human "Oracles", disconnected from time, provide snapshots from an unalterable, deterministic future. Chaos and uncertainty are dirty words and "I'll be heisenberged" a foul oath.

Young hero Tom--brought up in a deep-down bazaar--loses his mother to an Oracle's whim, his father to a cruelly self-fulfilling prediction, and his arm to the Lords' cruel justice. He's primed with hatred and inspired by a biographical data-crystal given him by an outlawed Pilot who's navigated the now forbidden fractal complexities of mu-space. Tom has enough mathematical genius to storm the pyramid of Nulapeiron's high society and perhaps gain power to take revenge--if he can also solve the paradox of how to kill an Oracle whose death date is fixed, known, and far off in time. Change would become possible...

Meaney's sustained inventiveness continues to dazzle. Paradox may be a little heavy on martial-arts action for some tastes, but the roller-coaster plot is full of unexpected twists, revelations, biotechnological oddities, changes of course and unlikely alliances. Crackling tension continues to the very end. Nice one. --David Langford

From the Back Cover:

With its vast subterranean cities and extraordinary organic technologies, Nulapeiron is a world unlike any other. However, such wonders mean little to the majority of its inhabitants, ruled over by despotic Logic Lords and the Oracles, supra-human beings whose ability to truecast the future maintains the status quo. But all this is about to change. In a crowded marketplace, Tom Corcorigan is witness to the brutal killing of a fleeing woman by a militia squad. His shock turns to horror when he recoconizes her as the stranger who, only the day before, had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. Only now, as the fire in her obsidian eyes fades, does he realize who - or what - she really was: a figure from legend, a Pilot. What Tom has yet to discover is that this crystal holds the key to mu-space, and so to freedom itself. For he has been given a destiny to fulfil - nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world...

Spectacularly staged, thrillingly written and set in a visionary future, Paradox places John Meaney at the forefront of science fiction in this new century.

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