Borrowed Tides - Softcover

Levinson, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1561780480 ISBN 13: 9781561780488

Publisher: Connected Editions, Incorporated, 2016

Synopsis

August 2016 brought news - real news, in our reality - that an Earth-like planet was discovered circling Proxima Centauri, the third star in the Alpha Centauri system, just over four light years from Earth. This is exactly what happens in Borrowed Tides, first published in hardcover in 2001, re-issued in Kindle this past April. It tells the story of the first starship to the Alpha Centauri system in 2029, employing a new technology which can move it through deep space at almost half the speed of light. But it requires an enormous amount of fuel, and can only carry enough for a one-way trip. A philosopher of science and his childhood friend, an anthropologist with a specialty in Native American culture, have a daringly bizarre plan, and talk the government into putting them in charge of the Light Through starship voyage.

About this title

Review:

Paul Levinson's second novel, Borrowed Tides, is an enjoyable read. It has all of the qualities that a good one-chapter-a-night-before-bed novel should have: it's engrossing, educational, and thought provoking without being too heavy. The characters, who are traveling from Mars to Alpha Centauri on humankind's first interstellar voyage with only enough fuel for a one-way trip, are both believable and likeable. And although many of the ideas Levinson deals with--the paradoxes inherent in time travel, the group dynamics of a small crew isolated for a long period of time on a space ship, the applicability of quantum mechanical principles to macroscopic objects, children with special powers--are not new, and could even be considered trite, his handling of them is interesting enough to make revisiting them worthwhile. Levinson's erudition is apparent throughout the novel, and his allusions to Native American legend, the Bible, computer science, political theory, and Western physics and philosophy suggest that he is well versed in each of these disparate fields. Thus, like his first, this novel will be appreciated by hard-core technophiles and more well-rounded science fiction lovers as well. --Diana Gitig

About the Author:

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999), Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To Save Socrates (2006), Unburning Alexandria (2013), and Chronica (2014) - the last three of which are also known as the Sierra Waters trilogy, and are historical fiction as well as science fiction. His stories and novels have been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Edgar, Prometheus, and Audie Awards. His nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009; 2nd edition, 2012), have been translated into twelve languages. He co-edited Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion in 2016. He appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the History Channel, NPR, and numerous TV and radio programs. His 1972 LP, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2010. He was President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 1998-2001. He reviews television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Top 10 Academic Twitterers" in 2009.

About this edition

• Publisher: Connected Editions, Incorporated
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1561780480
• ISBN 13: 9781561780488
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 255