Return to Tomorrow

“But the terms of his salvation were the terms of his imprisonment as well.”

I don't delve into science fiction all that often but when I do I often find ones that I truly enjoy. I have to say this was one of them. I finished it in a day. It's one I think that science fiction lovers would devour, but at the same time it's one that if you are new to the genre isn't overly complex to understand and doesn't have to do a lot of world building. The above quote really speaks to the heart of the book. We have men and women who have chosen to undertake the long passage knowing that the world they leave won't be the one that exists when they come home. Corday spends a lot of the novel wanting to know why they don't just settle down and show more establish a colony. A question which isn't answered until the very end of the novel and in a way that makes such beautiful sense and speaks to the price humanity is willing to pay. I really enjoyed this book and thought the characters were well developed and complex. show less

Per quanto non nutra particolare simpatia per l'autore ho trovato questo classicone un... classicone.
Ho apprezzato che non fosse da un lato una sequenza di tecnobubble e dall'altro un trattato filosofico ma un equilibrato romanzo che, però e purtroppo, porta i segni della vecchiaia.
Contestualizzato all'epoca è sicuramente una gran bella lettura, ma oggi rimane molto qualcosa di già visto, stravisto, già sentito e già sviscerato in tutti i modi.
Ci sono almeno 4 o 5 episodi di ogni serie di fantascienza che seguono la falsariga dei concetti affrontati in questo romanzo.
Onore al merito dei padri.

Per quanto non nutra particolare simpatia per l'autore ho trovato questo classicone un... classicone.
Ho apprezzato che non fosse da un lato una sequenza di tecnobubble e dall'altro un trattato filosofico ma un equilibrato romanzo che, però e purtroppo, porta i segni della vecchiaia.
Contestualizzato all'epoca è sicuramente una gran bella lettura, ma oggi rimane molto qualcosa di già visto, stravisto, già sentito e già sviscerato in tutti i modi.
Ci sono almeno 4 o 5 episodi di ogni serie di fantascienza che seguono la falsariga dei concetti affrontati in questo romanzo.
Onore al merito dei padri.

Cool scifi story about Alan Corday who was shanghaid aboard the "Hound of Heaven." He soon learns of the long passage and the cold equations by Einstein that predict the time away from Earth is multiplied many times when you are hitting at or near the speed of light.

The adventurer has his tough times with the Captain Jocelyn, visits strange colonies, one taken over by aliens, and the Earth changes as the centuries roll on.

Fascinating study of how a man changes and how the Earth may change as it got more decadent as the centuries passed. A must-read, could pass for a Young Adult novel.

Recommended.

I have been rereading and listening to the audiobook today, May 5, 2013 I skimmed it years ago and set it aside. My appreciation for this tale went way up making better use of the glossary this time through.

Harsh and gritty though it is, the craftsmanship of its telling is remarkable. Deep as space itself.

I still have a few chapters and suspensefully re-await its conclusion.

This story is gritty, harsh, brilliant and speculatively written off the Lorenz-Fitzgerald-Einstein equations. The audiobook is extraordinary and supplemented with a very beautiful piano track of Chick Corea.

Long distance space travel, at the speed of light, causes the effect that the crew barely ages on the ship while their friends and relatives on earth grow old and die off. Thousands of earth years pass by during a single lifetime of someone on the "long passage" ship. The hero of this story is kidnapped by the captain of the long voyage ship and is trained to be his successor. A well written fiction that is made all the better through character voices and superb music segments.