The Chronoliths
by Robert Charles Wilson
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Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past-and soon to be haunted by the future. In early-twenty-first-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter. And, the show more inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military victory-sixteen years in the future. Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of Bangkok-obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord "Kuin" whose victories they note? Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But, some strange loop of causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final battle with the future. show lessTags
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The Chronoliths was a book I may never have read were it not for the rise of the eBook. This novel caught my attention long ago, but couldn't be found on local bookshelves, and had to be ordered, if I wanted to read it. So it got added to my wishlist, and eventually was released for Kindle. Naturally, I bought it. And I'm glad I did.
Robert Charles Wilson has quickly become one of my favorites, and The Chronoliths is yet another of his fantastic works. His books are subtle, and yet marvelously complex.
The synopsis for The Chronoliths:
As always, Wilson does an amazing job of bringing the reader into a world that's fully-realized, and incredibly detailed. It's a world that's bleak, gritty, and--unfortunately--entirely believable. It's an America that certainly could exist, though thankfully does not--yet. The author reveals details off-handedly, as if it were already obvious to the reader; it's really handled perfectly, with information doled out at just the right moment--sometimes revealing crucial tidbits the reader wasn't even aware they were waiting to learn. The Chronoliths is an engrossing read from the very first page.
The characters are deeply flawed, and each have their role to play. From the unwilling viewpoint character, to the obligatory shady character, to the heroine with all the answers. Despite these flaws, they're excellent characters, with complex roles to play.
Most intriguing about this book is that it seeps into the reader's consciousness. One begins reading, and suddenly finds they can't wait to find out what happens next. It's a subtle but involving read.
By the end of the book, it's clear that events have taken on a life of their own, and we're just along for the ride. Still, it's a pretty fantastic ride. show less
Robert Charles Wilson has quickly become one of my favorites, and The Chronoliths is yet another of his fantastic works. His books are subtle, and yet marvelously complex.
The synopsis for The Chronoliths:
Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past-and soon to be haunted by the future.show more
In early twenty-first-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible
event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter. And the inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military victory--sixteen years in the future.
Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of Bangkok-obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord "Kuin" whose victories they note?
Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But some strange loop of causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final battle with the future.
As always, Wilson does an amazing job of bringing the reader into a world that's fully-realized, and incredibly detailed. It's a world that's bleak, gritty, and--unfortunately--entirely believable. It's an America that certainly could exist, though thankfully does not--yet. The author reveals details off-handedly, as if it were already obvious to the reader; it's really handled perfectly, with information doled out at just the right moment--sometimes revealing crucial tidbits the reader wasn't even aware they were waiting to learn. The Chronoliths is an engrossing read from the very first page.
The characters are deeply flawed, and each have their role to play. From the unwilling viewpoint character, to the obligatory shady character, to the heroine with all the answers. Despite these flaws, they're excellent characters, with complex roles to play.
Most intriguing about this book is that it seeps into the reader's consciousness. One begins reading, and suddenly finds they can't wait to find out what happens next. It's a subtle but involving read.
By the end of the book, it's clear that events have taken on a life of their own, and we're just along for the ride. Still, it's a pretty fantastic ride. show less
My reactions to reading this novel in 2002. Spoilers follow.
This novel probably has some unintended effects from it being published post-September 11th since it deals with terrorism of a sort.
It's an effectively done first-person narration presented as the narrator's memoirs.
The central idea of the Chronoliths, huge monuments seemingly projected back in time to commemorate the future military conquests of a mysterious figure known as Kuin, is interesting. The vast thermal deficit caused by their materialization causes all sorts of disruption with cracking stone, shattering plastic, and freezing water pipes. Sometimes, if they appear in cities, there is a great loss of life However, the main effect of the Chronoliths is that they cast show more a pall over the future, a literal shadow of doom. At first, the world understandably obsesses over them, and then they just become fixtures of the present, something that has always been present in the world of the young.
Wilson, who lives in Toronto, doesn't do all that great of a job evoking the Twin Cities of Minnesota even if he mentions place names like Nicollet Mall. However, I smiled at his invocation of their politics, however unintentional that commentary was. The Copperhead contingent, of which the narrator's ex-wife's husband belongs, is strong there. Named after the Northern appeasers in the Civil War, the Copperheads preach appeasement, adjustment, and the possibile benefits of aligning themselves with Kuin when he finally shows. (The monuments have inscriptions, and the inscription on the first one is allegedly from twenty years in the future.)
The plot is tied together by a tight knot of temporal paradox and coincidences that aren't really coincidences but, as mathematical physicist Sulamith Chopra, the result of "tau-turbulence". The mathematics that allow the Chronoliths also enable space travel.
A slick, fast, thoroughly engrossing read with an interesting take on the psychology of military conquest. show less
This novel probably has some unintended effects from it being published post-September 11th since it deals with terrorism of a sort.
It's an effectively done first-person narration presented as the narrator's memoirs.
The central idea of the Chronoliths, huge monuments seemingly projected back in time to commemorate the future military conquests of a mysterious figure known as Kuin, is interesting. The vast thermal deficit caused by their materialization causes all sorts of disruption with cracking stone, shattering plastic, and freezing water pipes. Sometimes, if they appear in cities, there is a great loss of life However, the main effect of the Chronoliths is that they cast show more a pall over the future, a literal shadow of doom. At first, the world understandably obsesses over them, and then they just become fixtures of the present, something that has always been present in the world of the young.
Wilson, who lives in Toronto, doesn't do all that great of a job evoking the Twin Cities of Minnesota even if he mentions place names like Nicollet Mall. However, I smiled at his invocation of their politics, however unintentional that commentary was. The Copperhead contingent, of which the narrator's ex-wife's husband belongs, is strong there. Named after the Northern appeasers in the Civil War, the Copperheads preach appeasement, adjustment, and the possibile benefits of aligning themselves with Kuin when he finally shows. (The monuments have inscriptions, and the inscription on the first one is allegedly from twenty years in the future.)
The plot is tied together by a tight knot of temporal paradox and coincidences that aren't really coincidences but, as mathematical physicist Sulamith Chopra, the result of "tau-turbulence". The mathematics that allow the Chronoliths also enable space travel.
A slick, fast, thoroughly engrossing read with an interesting take on the psychology of military conquest. show less
Really creative sci-fi is rare these days, and The Chronoliths is one of those rare pleasures. "Software designer Scott Warden is living with his family in early twenty-first century Thailand after his latest contract has ended. He and his friend Hitch Paley are among the first to find an enormous monolith which appears out of nowhere in the jungle. On closer examination, it is found to be a monument made of a mysterious, indestructible substance. It bears an inscription commemorating a military victory by someone named "Kuin", presumably an Asian warlord -- twenty years in the future."
The book goes on to chronicle the very personal changes in Scott Warden's life, as he lives through the tumult caused by these mysterious monoliths, and show more the unknown person responsible for them, and becomes part of a project to defeat Kuin, whoever he is. Wilson plays with themes of destiny, futurism, loyalty, love and loss. An inventive and profound book. show less
The book goes on to chronicle the very personal changes in Scott Warden's life, as he lives through the tumult caused by these mysterious monoliths, and show more the unknown person responsible for them, and becomes part of a project to defeat Kuin, whoever he is. Wilson plays with themes of destiny, futurism, loyalty, love and loss. An inventive and profound book. show less
Just tore through The Chronoliths. Ripping good yarn! These huge pillars made of who-knows-what and apparently from the future start appearing, the first one slamming down in Thailand. The monuments have inscriptions with a date twenty years in the future and an enigmatic 'leader' named Kuin, claiming 'victory'. A group of people from diverse settings are drawn together by 'tau turbulence' -- a time disturbance that changes the rules of causality -- and they are the ones who must secretly, of course, battle Kuin. It's a great read -- the effect of the 'chroniliths' is mostly psychological, and so the point is made that we make our futures based on what is going on in our heads rather than reality. Excellent stuff! Calabi-yau Geometry show more (based on a 10 dimension 'verse) is definitely beyond most of us, but I suspect that a generation or two beyond now it won't be so mind-numbingly strange and there will be some applications that would stagger us silly. Anyhow, this is the sort of read that reminds me why I so enjoy SF -- it manages to combine so many fun (to me) things, a good story and great ideas. show less
The year is 2021, and Scott Warden is an American computer programmer, recently unemployed and not especially ambitious to be otherwise, living with his wife and daughter in Thailand, when the first Chronolith appears, several hundred feet tall and composed of a mysterious icy blue substance, announcing the victorious Kuin 20 years in the future. Spontaneously joining his unsavory friend Hitch Paley on a motorcycle to see it, he doesn't bother to inform his wife Janice, so she cannot find him when daughter Kaitlin suddenly develops a fever and ear infection and has to be taken to the hospital. What was to be a few hours becomes a few days as everyone in the vicinity is interrogated. By the time Scott returns, Janice has had it with his show more irresponsibility, and has taken Katilin, recovering but nearly deaf, back to Minneapolis. Thus Scott is entangled in the tau turbulence. Several years go by, Scott too is back in Minneapolis, employed and again unemployed, when his former teacher Sue Chopra, a mathematician investigating tau turbulence, offers him a job. Why now? Because she recognized his name on a government list, she is obsessed, and she is sure that he is necessary to the cause. Meanwhile, Chronoliths have been appearing around the world, always with dates 20 years in the future, and the anxious anticipation is expressed in economic and political turmoil. Who or what is Kuin? Speculation is of a warlord somewhere in Asia, who to be so powerful and technologically advanced in 20 years... in 10 years... in 2 years... must exist and be plotting now. Kuinist political movements form, the now teenage Kaitlin disappears with a cultish youth group to witness the arrival of a Chronolith in Mexico, Scott meets the parents of its members and in particular Ashlee Mills, mother of its psychopathic leader Adam. Sue Chopra and her team of analysts have learned how to predict the arrival date and location. The next question is... can an arrival be prevented?
I'm not much for stories of world domination, and I was a touch doubtful about this book, but it gets to be quite a page turner with ordinary people caught up in paradoxical feedback loops, centered on Scott's concern for his family. There are neat analogies: "Trying to figure out the genesis of a Chronolith is like trying to unravel a sweater before it's been knitted.", and Minkowski ice, a 4-dimensional cube of freezing from the bottom up, solid is past, liquid is future, Chronolith is hot needle inserted into the ice. Do Chronoliths represent victory in battles yet to occur? Or are Chronoliths weapons that causes society to crumble? Would they have the same effect without dates and expectations? It is somewhat of an assumption that the dates are honest.
I will be looking for more books by this author.
(read 29 Dec 2011) show less
I'm not much for stories of world domination, and I was a touch doubtful about this book, but it gets to be quite a page turner with ordinary people caught up in paradoxical feedback loops, centered on Scott's concern for his family. There are neat analogies: "Trying to figure out the genesis of a Chronolith is like trying to unravel a sweater before it's been knitted.", and Minkowski ice, a 4-dimensional cube of freezing from the bottom up, solid is past, liquid is future, Chronolith is hot needle inserted into the ice. Do Chronoliths represent victory in battles yet to occur? Or are Chronoliths weapons that causes society to crumble? Would they have the same effect without dates and expectations? It is somewhat of an assumption that the dates are honest.
I will be looking for more books by this author.
(read 29 Dec 2011) show less
As a newbie to the brain of Robert Charles Wilson -- of his other novels, I've only read [b:Darwinia|760961|Darwinia|Robert Charles Wilson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312060675s/760961.jpg|906164] -- I was prepared for big questions with few answers. I was not disappointed. The story here is not one of overt heroics or melodramatic clashes but rather the quiet, bewildering moments of humanity as our collective "buckets of grief." We grieve for the world as it was, the world as it could be, and eventually the world as it is: infrastructure crumbling, paranoia swelling, violence reigning.
Not that the story ends without hope, because it does. But I asked myself as I turned the final page if, even as we learn from history, we are show more doomed to repeat it. The central idea of time travel is paired with the idea of belief, and how what we expect to be true or significant (or moral, or just ... I could go on) informs the landscape of our future. In a way, we are all constantly time-traveling, remembering the parts of our past to paint us in our best light, only seeing the interesting and shiny parts of our present. We build the future; we build our monuments to the future.
Once again, Robert Charles Wilson asks important questions and leaves it to us to find our own answers. show less
Not that the story ends without hope, because it does. But I asked myself as I turned the final page if, even as we learn from history, we are show more doomed to repeat it. The central idea of time travel is paired with the idea of belief, and how what we expect to be true or significant (or moral, or just ... I could go on) informs the landscape of our future. In a way, we are all constantly time-traveling, remembering the parts of our past to paint us in our best light, only seeing the interesting and shiny parts of our present. We build the future; we build our monuments to the future.
Once again, Robert Charles Wilson asks important questions and leaves it to us to find our own answers. show less
The Chronoliths was a book I may never have read were it not for the rise of the eBook. This novel caught my attention long ago, but couldn't be found on local bookshelves, and had to be ordered, if I wanted to read it. So it got added to my wishlist, and eventually was released for Kindle. Naturally, I bought it. And I'm glad I did.
Robert Charles Wilson has quickly become one of my favorites, and The Chronoliths is yet another of his fantastic works. His books are subtle, and yet marvelously complex.
The synopsis for The Chronoliths:
As always, Wilson does an amazing job of bringing the reader into a world that's fully-realized, and incredibly detailed. It's a world that's bleak, gritty, and--unfortunately--entirely believable. It's an America that certainly could exist, though thankfully does not--yet. The author reveals details off-handedly, as if it were already obvious to the reader; it's really handled perfectly, with information doled out at just the right moment--sometimes revealing crucial tidbits the reader wasn't even aware they were waiting to learn. The Chronoliths is an engrossing read from the very first page.
The characters are deeply flawed, and each have their role to play. From the unwilling viewpoint character, to the obligatory shady character, to the heroine with all the answers. Despite these flaws, they're excellent characters, with complex roles to play.
Most intriguing about this book is that it seeps into the reader's consciousness. One begins reading, and suddenly finds they can't wait to find out what happens next. It's a subtle but involving read.
By the end of the book, it's clear that events have taken on a life of their own, and we're just along for the ride. Still, it's a pretty fantastic ride. show less
Robert Charles Wilson has quickly become one of my favorites, and The Chronoliths is yet another of his fantastic works. His books are subtle, and yet marvelously complex.
The synopsis for The Chronoliths:
Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past-and soon to be haunted by the future.show more
In early twenty-first-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible
event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter. And the inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military victory--sixteen years in the future.
Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of Bangkok-obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord "Kuin" whose victories they note?
Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But some strange loop of causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final battle with the future.
As always, Wilson does an amazing job of bringing the reader into a world that's fully-realized, and incredibly detailed. It's a world that's bleak, gritty, and--unfortunately--entirely believable. It's an America that certainly could exist, though thankfully does not--yet. The author reveals details off-handedly, as if it were already obvious to the reader; it's really handled perfectly, with information doled out at just the right moment--sometimes revealing crucial tidbits the reader wasn't even aware they were waiting to learn. The Chronoliths is an engrossing read from the very first page.
The characters are deeply flawed, and each have their role to play. From the unwilling viewpoint character, to the obligatory shady character, to the heroine with all the answers. Despite these flaws, they're excellent characters, with complex roles to play.
Most intriguing about this book is that it seeps into the reader's consciousness. One begins reading, and suddenly finds they can't wait to find out what happens next. It's a subtle but involving read.
By the end of the book, it's clear that events have taken on a life of their own, and we're just along for the ride. Still, it's a pretty fantastic ride. show less
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The Chronoliths is a striking if occasionally bleak tale of time and causality that opens in the very near future. The world is going straight to hell, with social and economic crises nearly everywhere.
added by cmwilson101 — edited by MarthaJeanne
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Author Information
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Awards
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Les chronolithes
- Original title
- The Chronoliths
- Original publication date
- 2001-08
- People/Characters
- Scott Warden; Sulamith Chopra ("Sue"); Hitch Paley; Ashley; Adam Mills
- Important places
- Bangkok, Thailand; Wyoming, USA; Jerusalem, Israel; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Chumphon, Thailand; Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- First words
- It was Hitch Paley, rolling his beat-up Daimler motorbike across the packed sand of the beach behind the Haat Thai Dance Pavilion, who invited me to witness the end of an age.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)We had walked a long way, and the day was warm.
- Blurbers
- Hopkinson, Nalo; Hobb, Robin; Wolfe, Gary K.; Strahan, Jonathan
- Original language*
- Anglais canadien
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Reviews
- 36
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- ISBNs
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