The Arrows of Time
The generation ship Peerless was launched in The Clockwork Rocket and travelled into the void in The Eternal Flame, and this novel describes its return journey, the construction of a device that can receive messages from its own future, and the arrival at a world where time runs in reverse.
About
The Arrows of Time is a hard science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan, published by Gollancz on 21 November 2013 and the third part of the Orthogonal trilogy. Its central subject is the return journey of a generation ship.
The ship is the Peerless, which was launched in the first book of the trilogy, The Clockwork Rocket, and travelled into the void in the second, The Eternal Flame. The third volume describes what happens when it turns back.
The physics of the setting are built deliberately rather than assumed. Its universe is based on a Riemannian manifold instead of the Lorentzian one that describes our own, which changes the rules governing time and space and makes possible a device that can receive messages from its own future.
The story also takes its characters to a world where time runs in reverse. Valeria watches the launch of the Peerless from the home world at the start, and the trilogy ends with the consequences of the journey she set going.
Book details
- Author
- Greg Egan
- First published
- 2013
- Series
- Orthogonal, book 3
- Subgenre
- Hard science fiction, Space opera
- Primary genre
- Sci-Fi
- Tags
- No tags for this book.
- Reading order
- This is the only Orthogonal title on the shelf right now.
Rating
Review
Editor profile
Baby Bat
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