Les Chronolithes

The heroes and villains of this surpassingly strange novel are not who they think they are. Though the style is rich, lucid and literate, the point is dizzyingly abstract. Wilson, whose last novel, Mysterium (1994), won the Philip K. Dick Award, uses cosmological physics to envision an intergalactic sentience, millennia old, that fights insect-like "psions," machine intelligences, for the survival of consciousness itself. We glimpse this struggle directly only in occasional brief "Interludes" until well toward the end of the book. Before that, it is the story of Darwinia, a primeval landscape that in 1912 appears on Earth in place of most of Europe, transforming world history. When photographer Guilford Law joins an exploratory expedition, he lands in the middle of nationalistic skirmishes that wipe out most of his party in the bizarre forests of Darwinia, teeming with beasts from alien lines of descent. His personal life, notably his difficult relationship with his young wife, is intimately related, but he eventually learns that he and everything and everyone on Earth are instruments of the cosmic struggle of which Darwinia and the murderous skirmishes are mundane correlatives. Earth is an archive of consciousness that he must help protect. Hideous creatures mass and threaten in an ending reminiscent of Stephen King. Wilson's two-tiered story structure reminds one of Michael Moorcock's work, but it is much more coherent and accessible. In the blurring of character identities, he is comparable to Philip K. Dick or to A.E. Van Vogt. He owes something to Colin Wilson and Lovecraft as well, in the discovery through dreams and archeological wonders of a hidden reality. That he is able to weld the two realities so fluently is remarkable indeed. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Etats-Unis, fin des années 1950. Karen, Tim et leur s'ur Laura possèdent le don de voyager entre les mondes. Mais dans leur famille on n'en parle pas, ou alors au prix d'une raclée. Et on déménage. Tous les ans, une nouvelle ville. Pourquoi ce silence? Pourquoi cette fuite? Qui est ce menaçant homme en gris qui les retrouve à chaque escale et semble partager leur étrange pouvoir? Canada, de nos jours. La vie ordinaire que Karen s'est efforcée de mener depuis quarante ans vole en éclats le jour où son mari la quitte et où son fils de quinze ans, Michel, se révèle capable d'utiliser le talent maudit. En quête de réponses, elle se rend avec lui à Los Angeles pour retrouver sa s'ur, hippie sur le retour qui a choisi de vivre dans une Californie parallèle. C'est le point de départ d'une épopée fantastique qui les emmènera à travers plusieurs dimensions d'un bout à l'autre du continent nord-américain. Mais il faut faire vite: l'homme en gris a toujours une longueur d'avance. Roman d'aventures haletant, immersion dans un univers fantastique unique, Les fils da vent est avant tout une réflexion d'une finesse psychologique rare sur les liens familiaux.

La vie de Scott Warden bascule le jour où il est témoin de l'apparition du premier Chronolithe à Chumphon, en Thaïlande. Ce monument hors du commun célèbre la victoire du seigneur de la guerre Kuin. Mais cette victoire n'aura lieu que dans vingt ans et trois mois. Qui peut bien être ce Kuin dont on ignore tout ? Et comment ce monument a-t-il pu venir quasi instantanément du futur ? Autant de questions auxquelles vont tenter de répondre Scott et son ancien professeur de physique, Sulamith Chopra, pendant qu'autour d'eux le monde semble s'écrouler, dans l'attente de l'avènement de Kuin. Un grand roman de science-fiction aux allures de thriller scientifique empreint, comme souvent chez Robert Charles Wilson, d'humanisme et de mélancolie.

The heroes and villains of this surpassingly strange novel are not who they think they are. Though the style is rich, lucid and literate, the point is dizzyingly abstract. Wilson, whose last novel, Mysterium (1994), won the Philip K. Dick Award, uses cosmological physics to envision an intergalactic sentience, millennia old, that fights insect-like "psions," machine intelligences, for the survival of consciousness itself. We glimpse this struggle directly only in occasional brief "Interludes" until well toward the end of the book. Before that, it is the story of Darwinia, a primeval landscape that in 1912 appears on Earth in place of most of Europe, transforming world history. When photographer Guilford Law joins an exploratory expedition, he lands in the middle of nationalistic skirmishes that wipe out most of his party in the bizarre forests of Darwinia, teeming with beasts from alien lines of descent. His personal life, notably his difficult relationship with his young wife, is intimately related, but he eventually learns that he and everything and everyone on Earth are instruments of the cosmic struggle of which Darwinia and the murderous skirmishes are mundane correlatives. Earth is an archive of consciousness that he must help protect. Hideous creatures mass and threaten in an ending reminiscent of Stephen King. Wilson's two-tiered story structure reminds one of Michael Moorcock's work, but it is much more coherent and accessible. In the blurring of character identities, he is comparable to Philip K. Dick or to A.E. Van Vogt. He owes something to Colin Wilson and Lovecraft as well, in the discovery through dreams and archeological wonders of a hidden reality. That he is able to weld the two realities so fluently is remarkable indeed. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.