Synopsis
A MODERN SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC FROM WIL MCCARTHY
SAVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM FROM THE ULTIMATE COLLAPSE
In the eighth decade of the Queendom of Sol, three commodities rule the day. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal composed of miniature black holes, vital for the transmission of information and matter—including humans—throughout the Solar System. The third is the bitter rivalry between Her Majesty's top scientists.
Bruno de Towaji, famed lover and statesman, dreams of building an arc de fin, an almost mythical device capable of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime. Marlon Sykes, de Towaji's rival in both love and science, is meanwhile hard at work on a vast telecommunications project whose first step is the construction of a ring of collapsium around the Sun. But when a ruthless saboteur attacks the Ring Collapsiter and sends it falling into the Sun, the two scientists must put aside personal animosity and combine their prodigious intellects to prevent the destruction of the Solar System—and every living thing within it.
About The Collapsium:
“Ingenious and witty . . . as if Terry Pratchett at his zaniest and Larry Niven at his best had collaborated.”—Booklist
"Fresh and imaginative. From a plausible yet startling invention, McCarthy follows the logical lines of sight, building in parallel the technological and societal innovations."—Science Fiction Weekly
"The future as McCarthy sees it is a wondrous place." —Publishers Weekly
"[McCarthy] studs his narrative with far-out scientific concepts. . . . He certainly has a sense of humor."—The New York Times
“An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details, and plenty of twists and turns.”—Kirkus
About the Author
Engineer/novelist/journalist/entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick awards. His short fiction has graced the pages of Analog, Asimov’s, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable Bloom, Amazon.com “Best of Y2K” The Collapsium (a national bestseller), To Crush the Moon, and Antediluvian. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines.
Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics and founder/president/CTO of Raven Brick LLC, McCarthy holds patents of his own in seven countries, including twenty-nine issued U.S. patents in the field of nanostructured optical materials.
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