The Sky So Big and Black (Meme Wars) - Hardcover
At the end of the twenty-first century, Earth is under the control of a single intelligence, the apparently benign One True. Mars, meanwhile, is slowly terraforming, and the human settlers there are still free of One True's control...but they need a pressure suits to survive outside, and it will be a century or more before the planet's fit for terrestrial life.
Terpsichore Murray is growing up on Mars. She wants to quit school and become, like her father, an ecoprospector. He has other ideas: he wants her to stay in school. He does want her along on his next long trip but only to conduct a group of younger kids from the highlands at Mars's equator back to school in Wells City.
What happens next will change Terpsichore, will change Mars, and will open the door to a new chapter in the history of intelligent beings in the solar system . . . all of them.
Terpsichore Murray is growing up on Mars. She wants to quit school and become, like her father, an ecoprospector. He has other ideas: he wants her to stay in school. He does want her along on his next long trip but only to conduct a group of younger kids from the highlands at Mars's equator back to school in Wells City.
What happens next will change Terpsichore, will change Mars, and will open the door to a new chapter in the history of intelligent beings in the solar system . . . all of them.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"They don't make 'em like that any more!" say fans of the classic juvenile SF novels, Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage (1968) and the run of Robert A. Heinlein novels that begins with Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) and ends with Podkayne of Mars (1963). Except--John Barnes has made one like that: The Sky So Big and Black. The book's brilliant teenage protagonist, hard science, brisk pace, didactic moments, and strong characterization make it clear that Barnes is working consciously in the tradition of Panshin and Heinlein (especially Heinlein's Red Planet [1949] and Podkayne of Mars). Like his models, Barnes does a superb job. The Sky So Big and Black is a classic. Read it, and give it to any smart, perhaps-outcast young reader whom you want to infect with the science fiction meme.
About the Author:
Terpsichore "Teri" Murray lives on Mars, an eco-prospector-in-training and the daughter of a widowed ecospector. Instead of gold, ecospectors seek underground rivers and gas pockets, which they blast to the Martian surface in hopes of earning fabulous wealth. The ecospector life is hard, primitive, dangerous, and perhaps doomed to extinction, as the Martian atmosphere thickens and the genetically engineered "Mars-form" humans increase their population. An Earth-form human, Teri doesn't want to give up ecospecting, which she loves as much as she hates the city and school where she's forced to spend part of every year. But she finds herself with new, far more ominous worries when a devastating planetwide disaster isolates the colonies from one another, strands Teri in the Martian outback with several injured young children, and opens the entire planet to attack by One True, the collective intelligence that rules Earth in a terrifyingly total dictatorship. --Cynthia Ward
John Barnes is the award-winning author of Orbital Resonance, A Million Open Doors, Mother of Storms, Earth Made of Glass, The Merchants of Souls, Candle, and many other novels. With Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, he wrote the novels Encounter with Tiber and The Return. He lives in Colorado.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTor Books
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0765303035
- ISBN 13 9780765303035
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages320
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 19.00
Shipping:
US$ 3.75
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
THE SKY SO BIG AND BLACK (Meme Wars)
Published by
Tor Books, New York, NY 10010, U.S.A.
(2002)
ISBN 10: 0765303035
ISBN 13: 9780765303035
New
Hardcover
First Edition
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. At the end of the twenty-first century, Earth is under the control of a single intelligence, the apparently benign One True. Mars, meanwhile, is slowly terraforming, and the human settlers there are still free of One True's control.but they need pressure suits to survive outside, and it will be a century or more before the planet's fit for terrestrial life. Terpsichore Murray is growing up on Mars. She wants to quit school and become, like her father, an ecoprospector. He has other ideas: he wants her to stay in school. He does want her along on his next long trip but only to conduct a group of younger kids from the highlands at Mars's equator back to school in Wells City. What happens next will change Terpsichore, will change Mars, and will open the door to a new chapter in the history of intelligent beings in the solar system . . . all of them. John Barnes is a multiple Hugo and Nebula award nominee. He is the author of DIRECTIVE 51, DAYBREA ZERO, and THE LAST PRESIDENT, as well as THE RETURN with Buzz Aldrin. This is the fourth book in his Century Next Door series. Mint, new, unread, first edition, first printing, in new, mylar-protected dust cover. {Not remainder-marked or price-clipped} L158. Seller Inventory # 023729
Buy New
US$ 19.00
Convert currency
Stock Image
THE SKY SO BIG AND BLACK (MEME W
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 1.1. Seller Inventory # Q-0765303035
Buy New
US$ 76.47
Convert currency