Tau Zero

By Poul Anderson

Book Overview

This Hugo Award finalist, "justifiably regarded as a classic" (SFReviews.net), is the tale of an epic space voyage where time dilation goes horribly wrong.

Aboard the spacecraft Leonora Christine, fifty crewmembers, half men and half women, have embarked on a journey of discovery like no other to a planet thirty light-years away. Since their ship is not capable of traveling faster than light, the crew will be subject to the effects of time dilation and relativity. They will age five years on board the ship before reaching their destination, but thirty-three years will pass on Earth. Experienced scientists and researchers, they have come to terms with the time conditions of their space travel.

Until . . . the Leonora Christine passes through an uncharted nebula, which damages the engine, making it impossible to decelerate the ship on the second half of their trip. To survive, the crewmembers have no choice but to bypass their destination and continue to accelerate toward the speed of light. But how will they keep hope alive and maintain order as they hurtle deeper into space with time passing more and more rapidly, and their ultimate fate unknown?

With its combination of mind-blowing hard science and compelling human drama, Tau Zero is "the ultimate hard science novel" (Mike Resnick).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1504054563
• ISBN13: 9781504054560
• Release Date: September 2018
• Publisher: Open Road Media Science & Fantasy
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

epic, light speed, promiscuous adventure - yeah!

This is perhaps the most epic book I've ever read. It's more epic than any "end of Earth" book and far more epic than any "human survivalist" story. This combines both "end of the entire universe" kind of story and "humans fight for survival" sort of story. The spaceship, Leonora Christine, driven by a Bussard engine from earth becomes handicapped on its way to an earth-like planet. From there, the ship cannot decelerate and continues to pick up speed through 99% of light speed... and continues to climb to a billionth of a percent of light speed. Besides the 50 crew on the ship, the Leonora Christine itself feels like a character in need of sympathy. She hurls the crew through intrastellar space, time, the Milky Way, interstellar space, other remote galaxies and even further! Mind blowing originality. Wow. The crew are a mild bunch of scientists and engineers. Being stuck together for three years with likelihood of being stuck together for possibly forever on their mission, they form non-traditional bonds. By that I mean they all have multiple partners. From this act, all the characters inevitably become involved with one another in one way or another, whether they like it or not. Self sufficient or self destructive?

Going overboard--the right way!

Many sci-fi movies tend to end by putting things back to normal and saying essentially, "There are some things that man was not meant to know." This book is the antithesis of that mentality. Poul Anderson gets farther and farther out--literally--with every chapter. Highly recommended.