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[starreview]
Classification: Future Reality
Although Marooned in Realtime continues the plot which begins with The Peace War, it is a completely separate novel. In fact, The Peace War only serves as the background: Marooned in Realtime is a very different novel.
As mentioned in my review for The Peace War, somewhere in the early 21st century, the Peace Authority, an unknown organization at that point, was able to conquer the world using an irresistible weapon, the “bobbler”, which creates an impenetrable force field that surrounds key areas, essentially freezing these areas in time. What the Peace Authority did not know is that these force fields eventually dissipate, thus, releasing their contents to the world. From the occupants’ perspective, no time has passed at all – they suddenly find themselves in the future. The length of the stasis can range from a few hours to thousands of years.
The story begins in the very far future: some 50 million years from now. The Earth has been long abandoned – something happened in the 23rd century which caused all humans to disappear – and several bobbles which were created in The Peace War and the centuries afterward are finally beginning to unfreeze.
The survivors of these bobbles find themselves stranded in a desolate place, and slowly begin to rebuild civilization in the empty world. In order to increase the population size, this group of survivors periodically bobbles itself for periods of time, looking for new survivors every time it unfreezes. However, after one such event, it is discovered that Marta Korolev, one of the most popular members, was stranded behind – essentially “Marooned in realtime”. Although for the group no time has passed at all, Marta has been trapped alone for many decades, and when the bobble finally dissipates, the group finds her long dead. Quickly it is discovered that this is no accident, and that someone has done this intentionally. This is effectively murder, made particularly malevolent by the fact in the empty Earth, every human is extremely precious. Who is doing this, and why?
This is the premise to Marooned in Realtime. Unlike its predecessor, the book is a murder mystery, and a very good one. Although it is based on The Peace War, it very different in story and tone. However, as before, the story is well written and the characters are well developed: one really starts feeling for them.
Marooned in Realtime also discusses a secondary mystery: why did humanity vanish? This introduces the reader to the Singularity: one of Vinge’s favorite topics, and makes for a very interesting back story.
Overall, I thought this is a great book: It’s intelligent, imaginative and enjoyable. I highly recommend it.
Link to the book on Amazon.com
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