Starplex

Editorial Reviews From Library Journal Multiple award-winning Canadian author Sawyer offers an epic hard-science space adventure full of technical descriptions of starships and physics tempered by human concerns. In 2094, scientists on the Starplex study the mysterious artificial wormholes that make space travel routine and convenient. Then the wormholes' creators appear, and the scientists must understand and communicate with them to save the galaxy. Highly recommended for sf collections. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Entertaining and episodic, Starplex is a tale of interstellar exploration and adventure rather like a reconceptualized and debugged Star Trek. In the twenty-first century, the human race has both developed faster-than-light travel and contacted nonhuman intelligent races. Starplex, under the command of Keith Lansing, is one of the contact makers. Lansing faces hostile crew members, the personal and cultural idiosyncracies of nonhumans, the problems of first contact, and a marriage that may be deteriorating. No one, probably including Sawyer, will claim great originality for the yarn. Technically, it is good rather than great, yet it emphatically works, will draw readers, and may be the opening of a long-running series. Roland Green The only novel of its year to be nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Starplex won Canada's Aurora Award for best novel of the year. For nearly twenty years Earth's space exploration had exploded outward, thanks to a series of mysterious, artificial wormholes. No one knows who created these interstellar passages, yet they have brought the far reaches of space immediately close. For Starplex Director Keith Lansing, too close. Discovery is superseding understanding. And when an unknown vessel — with no windows, no seams, and no visible means of propulsion — arrives through a new wormhole, an already battle-scarred Starplex could be the starting point of a new interstellar war . . . ROBERT J. SAWYER has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell Memorial, Seiun, and Aurora Awards, all for best science fiction novel of the year. His novels include Hominids, Rollback, Wake, and FlashForward (basis for the TV series). "For nearly twenty years, Earth's space exploration had exploded outward, thanks to a series of mysterious, artificial wormholes ... When an unknown vessel--with no windows, no seams, and no visible means of propulsion--arrives through a new wormhole," it could be the start of an intergalactic war "For nearly twenty years, Earth's space exploration had exploded outward, thanks to a series of mysterious, artificial wormholes ... When an unknown vessel--with no windows, no seams, and no visible means of propulsion--arrives through a new wormhold," it could be the start of an intergalactic war Twenty years after the discovery of artificial wormholes launches Earth space exploration to unforeseeable heights, Starplex Director Keith Lansing investigates a mysterious vessel that soon threatens the station with intergalactic war.