Mysterium
by Robert Charles Wilson
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In a top-secret government installation near the small town of Two Rivers, Michigan, scientists are investigating a mysterious object discovered several years earlier. Late one evening, the local residents observe strange lights coming from the laboratory. The next morning, they awake to find that their town was literally cut off from the rest of the world...and thrust into a new one Soon the town is discovered by the bewildered leaders of this new world--at which point, the people of Two show more Rivers realize that they've arrived in a rigid theocracy. The authorities, known as the Bureau de la Covenance Religieuse, have ordered Linneth Stone, a young ethnologist, to analyze the arrivals and report her findings to the Lieutenant in charge. What Linneth finds will challenge the philosophical basis of her society and lead inexorably to a struggle for power centering on the mysterious object that Two Rivers' government scientists were studying when the town slipped between worlds. In "Mysterium," Robert Charles Wilson "blends science, religion, philosophy and alternate history into an intelligent, compelling work of fiction" ("Publishers Weekly").At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Big idea story that was just a little too far out there ... too woo woo for the big idea. Several important elements of the story seemed underdeveloped. For me, the central mystery remains a mystery. A very interesting character story buried in here amongst the religious fascists. I liked that part of the book a lot and became invested in the characters. But a pall hangs over the entire book as it is clear that the nazi-like theocrats have a final solution planned.
I thought this was a new book when I bought it but it was a re-release of a 1994 novel.
I thought this was a new book when I bought it but it was a re-release of a 1994 novel.
Wilson's novels generally foreground the concerns of ordinary people against some vast backdrop of space and time, a common SF move which Wilson does uncommonly well.
Two Rivers, a small town in Michigan, is zapped into a different timeline by experiments at a nearby government facility. Roads and power lines are cut off by trackless wilderness at the town's edge. Soon the town is occupied by the theocratic dictatorship that rules much of North America in the new timeline. The new world and ours seem to have diverged in the early Christian era; there, gnostic Christianity became the dominant religious strain. The town's new rulers, the Proctors of the Bureau de la Convenance Religieuse, find the ideas held by the residents of Two Rivers show more to be disturbingly heretical and in need of eradication. Their solution: books from the town's libraries have advanced the Bureau's nuclear-weapons program marvelously, and a test site for the new bomb will be needed. Meanwhile the timeline-jumping experiment is still active, covering the facility in a blue dome of deadly radiation.
Wilson's people include: Alan Stern, the genius physicist behind the experiment, who was on site and is presumed dead, Dexter Graham, a history teacher at the high school, Evelyn Woodward, a bed & breakfast operator, Howard Poole, the sole surviving scientist from the research facility, and Clifford Stockton, an inquisitive 12 year old. From the new world, Linneth Stone is a comparative ethnologist at Sethian College in Boston; she is drafted to help understand the very peculiar population that has turned up in the upper midwest. Lieutenant Demarch is the Proctor assigned the task of disposing of the town. The story brings out the interiority and complexity of each.
For the reader of alternate history, an obvious question arises. If the two worlds diverged in the second century CE, how can the Proctors speak versions of English and French comprehensible to the Two Rivers people? Wilson has an answer, relating to the process that led the town to this particular world.
A quick, thoughtful read. show less
Two Rivers, a small town in Michigan, is zapped into a different timeline by experiments at a nearby government facility. Roads and power lines are cut off by trackless wilderness at the town's edge. Soon the town is occupied by the theocratic dictatorship that rules much of North America in the new timeline. The new world and ours seem to have diverged in the early Christian era; there, gnostic Christianity became the dominant religious strain. The town's new rulers, the Proctors of the Bureau de la Convenance Religieuse, find the ideas held by the residents of Two Rivers show more to be disturbingly heretical and in need of eradication. Their solution: books from the town's libraries have advanced the Bureau's nuclear-weapons program marvelously, and a test site for the new bomb will be needed. Meanwhile the timeline-jumping experiment is still active, covering the facility in a blue dome of deadly radiation.
Wilson's people include: Alan Stern, the genius physicist behind the experiment, who was on site and is presumed dead, Dexter Graham, a history teacher at the high school, Evelyn Woodward, a bed & breakfast operator, Howard Poole, the sole surviving scientist from the research facility, and Clifford Stockton, an inquisitive 12 year old. From the new world, Linneth Stone is a comparative ethnologist at Sethian College in Boston; she is drafted to help understand the very peculiar population that has turned up in the upper midwest. Lieutenant Demarch is the Proctor assigned the task of disposing of the town. The story brings out the interiority and complexity of each.
For the reader of alternate history, an obvious question arises. If the two worlds diverged in the second century CE, how can the Proctors speak versions of English and French comprehensible to the Two Rivers people? Wilson has an answer, relating to the process that led the town to this particular world.
A quick, thoughtful read. show less
A secret government installation experimenting with a mysterious artifact explodes, sending it and the nearby town into an alternate reality.
That's a premise that could be used very badly. Robert Charles Wilson, however, wraps a great story around it. Much of that is due to the depth he adds by knowing enough quantum physics mumbo-jumbo to add by way of explanation, while mating it with elements of Gnostic mystery religion (!). Plot-wise he also has a way of upping the ante as the story progresses so tension builds to a countdown climax.
Though this is manifestly not a character-driven novel, Wilson for the most part invests his characters with sufficient complexity to carry the story. And as he has proven in the past, Wilson is gifted show more in describing a setting so it's easy to the reader to mentally sense the surroundings. show less
That's a premise that could be used very badly. Robert Charles Wilson, however, wraps a great story around it. Much of that is due to the depth he adds by knowing enough quantum physics mumbo-jumbo to add by way of explanation, while mating it with elements of Gnostic mystery religion (!). Plot-wise he also has a way of upping the ante as the story progresses so tension builds to a countdown climax.
Though this is manifestly not a character-driven novel, Wilson for the most part invests his characters with sufficient complexity to carry the story. And as he has proven in the past, Wilson is gifted show more in describing a setting so it's easy to the reader to mentally sense the surroundings. show less
Robert Charles Wilson's SF novels are based around scenarios where a fundamental aspect of reality is changed and charts the reactions of victims and observers to that change, whether that be the disappearance of an entire continent, or Earth being cutting off by a membrane causing the stars to disappear from sight. In this novel, following a bizarre accident at a secret research centre, an entire town in Michigan, Two Rivers, is transported to the equivalent spot and the same time in a parallel dimension where technology is more primitive, but a different form of Christianity holds sway, and women and racial minorities are oppressed - though these aspects are incidental to the plot and only mentioned briefly. In the end, having taken show more the town over to find out its advanced technological secrets, the authorities in the parallel world decide on a drastic solution to the anomaly that has arrived in their midst. There are a mixed bunch of characters on both sides, and new alliances form as the final fate of the town becomes clearer. A quick and mostly engaging read - there were a few info dumps, though less often than in Spin. show less
Mysterium tells the story of a community that is transported to a different Earth after scientists experiment with a strange object. The book tells this story from the point of view of several people; a few from the community, and some from the different Earth. I read this book after enjoying Spin, and found the same good elements. There is science fiction, but the emphasis of the book is very much on what the events do to the people, instead of on the event itself. I do think it would have been nice to learn a bit more about the object, but then the book couldn't have been called Mysterium :).
A mysterious object is found in Turkey and transported to the USA. Some months later, in a US Army lab near a remote town in Michigan, a catastrophic accident moves lab, town and inhabitants to somewhere else entirely...
I can't believe I'm the first person to review this book. It is simply the best science fiction I have ever read, a suspenseful resistance story, a convincing alternative world and an understated exploration of the limits of human knowledge. Worth every one of its five stars.
I can't believe I'm the first person to review this book. It is simply the best science fiction I have ever read, a suspenseful resistance story, a convincing alternative world and an understated exploration of the limits of human knowledge. Worth every one of its five stars.
"Mysterium", one of Wilson's older cache of works is similar in many ways to the underpinnings of the 'Fringe' television series storyline - specifically with regard to the William Bell plot devices. It also gives hints of what "Darwinia", another of his older works, will become on some levels.
With that being said, here we have an entire town, thrown into chaos and confusion - unsure of where they are, when they are, and what went wrong that got them there in the first place. We are faced with a dystopian society who is as unsure about the interlopers, as the interlopers are as unsure about anything.
While not his strongest work, it still begs a read, especially for the completist fans of his works.
With that being said, here we have an entire town, thrown into chaos and confusion - unsure of where they are, when they are, and what went wrong that got them there in the first place. We are faced with a dystopian society who is as unsure about the interlopers, as the interlopers are as unsure about anything.
While not his strongest work, it still begs a read, especially for the completist fans of his works.
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An alien artifact transports the small town of Two Rivers, Michigan, to an alternate universe, where political repression is the order of the day and survival an ever-growing concern. The latest novel by the author of The Harvest ( LJ 11/15/92) and The Bridge of Years ( LJ 8/91) offers a study in culture shock as simple people find their values and their future irrevocably redefined. Wilson is show more a graceful storyteller who relies on the power of his characters to convey the underlying messages of his tale. show less
added by cmwilson101
The residents of Two Rivers, Mich., wake up one morning to find themselves in a changed world. The entire town and the top-secret government research facility that was located near it have been blasted into a parallel world. Their own history has been erased and they are faced instead with a repressive government controlled by a powerful church that professes a version of Gnostic Christianity. show more The governing Proctors plunder the town for information, gaining the knowledge to build an atomic bomb; to prevent the contagion of ideas, Two Rivers is designated as the first test site. A few residents--history teacher Dex Graham, physicist Howard Poole, along with Linneth Stone, a cultural researcher sent from the outside to study these "aliens"--slowly piece together the events that brought them to this strange universe and begin to fight against the forces that now control them. The solution lies in a mysterious fragment found in a Middle Eastern desert that turns out to be part of a "wormhole boat," a device for traveling between parallel worlds that physicist Alan Stern came upon and piloted as he took the town of Two Rivers with him into a world that echoed his own obsessions. Wilson ( The Harvest ) blends science, religion, philosophy and alternate history into an intelligent, compelling work of fiction. show less
added by cmwilson101
Author Information
47+ Works 14,413 Members
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NTW (New English Library)
Gallimard, Folio SF (405)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Mysterium
- Original title
- Mysterium
- Original publication date
- 1994
- People/Characters*
- Dexter Graham; Clifford Stockton; Howard Poole; Linneth Stone; Evelyn Woodward; Symeon Philip Demarch (show all 12); Lukas Thibault; Calvin Shepperd; Clément Delafleur; Ellen Stockton; Bisonette; Milos Fabrikant
- Important places*
- Two Rivers
- Dedication
- for Jo: parallel worlds
- First words
- On a dry inland plain, under a sky the color of agate, a handful of Americans scuffed at a rubble of ancient clay masonry. (Before)
Dex Graham woke with the sun in his eyes and the weave of Evelyn Woodward's bedroom carpet printed on the side of his face. (Chapter One) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It was a safe bet, he thought, that they would all live to see morning. (Chapter Thirty-One)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But I am curious to find out, and as soon as I learn more of their language I hope to ask them. (After) - Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice*
- Attention, en France, Mysterium est le nom de deux ouvrages de Robert Charles Wilson : le roman Mysterium édité par J'ai lu puis réédité en Folio SF, et le recueil Mysteriem, édité par Denoël en collection Lunes d'enc... (show all)re, qui contient le roman Mysterium ainsi que les nouvelles La Cabane de l'aiguilleur (A Hidden place), Le Mariage de la Dryade (The Dryad's Wedding), Le Grand adieu (The Great Goodbye), Les Affinités (The Affinities), Le Théâtre cartésien (The Cartesian Theater), YFL-500 (YFL-500) et Julian : un conte de Noël (Julian : A Christmas Story).
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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