Beyond the Veil of Stars - Hardcover

Reed, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312857306 ISBN 13: 9780312857301

Publisher: Tor Books, 1994

Synopsis

Agent Cornell Novak is sent through the government's energy portal and translated into a creature adapted for another world on a mission to redeem the dreams of his father, a frustrated UFO researcher. By the author of Black Milk.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Reed's latest is a fascinating pairing of two science-fiction scenarios. The first focuses on the inexplicable "Change," that moment when the sky suddenly inverted itself, casting back a mirrorlike image of the other side of the planet. During the day, the sky now looks as it always has, but at night no stars appear, just a clear bright view of Earth's day-side. Cornell Novak has spent his childhood roaming with his father and his father's buddy Pete on their amateur investigations of UFOs. Though at first the Change, by vindicating the elder Novak's odd ideas, seems to bring father and son closer, it eventually pushes them apart, and Cornell leaves home in anger. At this point, where another writer might focus on worldwide reactions to the Change, Reed takes a more intriguing tack, moving on to a second scenario in which, years later, Cornell joins a government project studying the Change. The sky-shift, it seems, revealed strange space-time warps through which humans can be sent to other worlds, though they are reconfigured in the process, taking the form of a creature indigenous to the new planet. Traveling to the world called "High Desert," where humans emerge as rodent-like beasts composed of several telepathically linked bodies and one central "mind," Cornell takes part in efforts to contact a powerful alien consciousness. Reed ( Black Milk ; The Remarkables ) goes on to add yet another dimension to this tale of first contact, paralleling it with the story of Cornell's reconciliation with his past and his father. With a delightfully strange backdrop and so moving a human drama at its heart, this may be one of the best science-fiction novels of the year.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

One night, after years of more or less confirmed UFO activity, the stars vanish--replaced by a mirror image of the Earth. (The explanation of this event is complicated and shaky.) Cornell Novak, whose lovably dotty father is an ardent UFO investigator, finally learns the truth about his mother: She was not snatched by a UFO, as Dad had allowed him to believe; she simply left. Devastated, Cornell rejects his father and leaves home. Years later, he joins a top-secret government project investigating space-time wormholes, which permit a human to enter another planet in an alien body. Cornell visits High Desert, where he's a multibodied creature that drags its brain around like a piece of hairy baggage. He becomes enamored of the freethinking Porsche Neal; together they have various adventures. Back on Earth, Cornell tracks down his viperous mother, is reconciled with Dad, and deduces that Porsche is actually an alien visiting Earth in human form. Together, they prepare to blow the whistle on the government's ruthless and destructive attempts to acquire alien technologies. Intriguing ideas with curious but not particularly credible extrapolations, in a narrative weighty with familial angst: a fairly typical outing for the author of Black Milk (1989), etc. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0312857306
• ISBN 13: 9780312857301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318