Kris’ Book Reviews

It is the year of 2021, Scott lives in Thailand, has a wife and a child, when during a trip with his colleague he encounters a military blockade. Beyond this barrier they see a massive block monument made out of blueish material which is surrounded with a thick fog. As they hear later, the monument has a writing on it saying that it is a memorial of stranger Kuin’s victory in the 2041 year.

During the following years more and more such memorials appear around Asia, all of them talking about the same mysterious Kuin. When the monuments erects it destroys everything in its vicinity, and as a byproduct, very dramatically reduces temperature in its surroundings. It results in even more damage as freezing water blows up containers, pipes, cars. Governments start science projects to gain more knowledge about strange structures and a way to stop Kuin.

This nominated to Hugo awards novel is an example of science-fiction book with future paradoxes. By sending monuments to the past, Kuin creates himself and his followers, as a result he gains knowledge how to create monuments that appear in the past. The book is written in a form of Scott’s diary, so we can see how his life is affected by this strange invasion from the future. In the beginning he is fascinated with Kuin’s blue blocks, but as more of the appear, and more people turn into Kuin’s followers, his fascination fades. He looses job, and starts to work for a scientest which wants to top Kuin.

“The Chronoliths” has a well developed characters with interesting backgrounds (e.g. Scott’s boss is a lesbian, despite that her assistant is in love with her).

The ending is somehow disappointing, we aren’t told who is Kuin, there are only some hints but the true identity is hidden. There is an interesting explanation of the way the time is affected by Kuin. It is explained as a result of strange tau radiation that makes people do what they have to (e.g. monuments have to appear), people that are near the memorials during their landing are connected with those blocks in a way that’s not so clear.

Robert Charles Wilson’s novel gives a good and interesting view on how the future might influence the present. Also, diary form is not common in science-fiction literature and should be promoted more (it shows more emotions of the main characters than a third person perspective).

It is the first book of this author that I have read, but it definitely encouraged me to seek out more of his novels.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy The Chronoliths

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 15th, 2006 at 8:27 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Sciencie-Fiction, Robert Charles Wilson . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.