''Marooned in Realtime'' is a 1986
murder mystery
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...
and
time-travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by American writer
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vinge (; born October 2, 1944) is an American science fiction author and retired professor. He taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University. He is the first wide-scale popularizer of the technological singu ...
, about a small, time-displaced group of people who may be the only survivors of a
technological singularity
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...
or alien invasion. It is the sequel to the novel ''
The Peace War'' (1984) and the novella ''
The Ungoverned'' (1985). Both novels and the novella were collected in ''Across Realtime''.
''Marooned in Realtime'' won the
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society. American author and activist L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newl ...
in 1987 and was also nominated for the
Hugo Award
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier a ...
for
Best Novel that same year.
Plot summary
In the story, a device exists that can create a "bobble", a spherical
stasis field in which time stands still for a specified length of outside time, allowing one-way time travel into the future. The bobble can also be used as a weapon, a shield against other weapons, for storage, for space travel (combined with
nuclear pulse propulsion
Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It originated as Project ''Orion'' with support from DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw ...
), and other purposes.
People whose bobbles burst after a certain date in the 23rd century find the Earth completely devoid of human life, with only ambiguous clues as to the cause; possibilities include alien attack and humanity transcending to a new level of existence as a result of a
technological singularity
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...
. The "low-techs" — those who bobbled earlier — have roughly late-21st-century technology. The "high-techs" — those who had the advantage of ever accelerating progress — have vastly superior technology, including
cybernetic enhancements, faster and thought-controlled bobblers, personal
automaton
An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...
extensions of self,
space ships, medical technology to allow practical
immortality
Immortality is the concept of eternal life. Some modern species may possess biological immortality.
Some scientists, futurists, and philosophers have theorized about the immortality of the human body, with some suggesting that human immorta ...
(barring accidents or fatal injuries), and individual arsenals greater than those of entire 20th century countries. Of the high-techs, even those who bobbled at slightly different times have significantly different technology levels.
The protagonist is Wil Brierson, a
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
who also was the protagonist of the preceding novella, ''
The Ungoverned''. Some time after the events in ''The Ungoverned'', Brierson was unwillingly bobbled 10,000 years into the future while he was investigating a routine theft, cutting him off forever from his wife and children.
Yelén and Marta Korolev, a high-tech couple, have spent 50 "megayears" (million years) gathering together all the survivors they can find to rebuild civilization, with the ultimate goal of creating their own technological singularity. They calculate that they will have just enough
genetic diversity
Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species, it ranges widely from the number of species to differences within species and can be attributed to the span of survival for a species. It is dis ...
to pull it off once the bobble containing about a hundred members of the Peace Authority bursts.
Before one of their routine bobbles while waiting for that bobble to expire, the Korolevs' computers are
hacked, and Marta is excluded from the automated bobbling. She is left stranded in "realtime", cut off from all advanced technology. Worse, the hacker has extended the duration of the bobbling far beyond what was intended, and Marta dies alone on a deserted Earth. When the "murder" is discovered, Yelén Korolev hires the low-tech Brierson to find the killer, who has to be one of the seven high-techs (Brierson does not rule out Yelén herself as a suspect).
Della Lu, a high-tech who was an agent of the Peace Authority during ''
The Peace War'', agrees to assist Brierson with the technical aspects of the case. In the millions of years since the singularity, Della had spent most of her 9,000 years alone, exploring the galaxy. She discovered that intelligent life is extremely rare, and there were parallel vanishings in the few civilizations she found, but no definitive proof of the cause. The singularity is implied to be an explanation for the
Fermi Paradox
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence, and by extension of obtaining such evidence. As a 2015 article put it, ...
.
The novel thus deals with the investigation of two parallel
locked room mysteries: the murder of Marta Korelev, and the "locked planet" mystery of the disappearance of the human race. Brierson interviews each of the high-techs, seeking evidence of any motive for murder while discussing their views on why the human race vanished. When the killer thinks Brierson is getting too close, Brierson, Korolev and Della Lu are horrified to discover that the criminal is able to gain control of ''all'' of the high-tech systems, except for Della's, and attacks. Della manages to defeat their combined forces, but at a ruinous cost: much of their equipment and about half of what remains of humanity are lost. Brierson, however, not only unmasks the murderer, he reveals the identity of another monster in their midst and finds a way to restore a second chance for mankind.
References
External links
*
Reviewby
Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and ''Tooth and Claw (novel), Tooth ...
Marooned in Realtimeat Worlds Without End
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marooned In Realtime
1986 science fiction novels
Transhumanist books
1986 American novels
Novels by Vernor Vinge
Novels about time travel
Novels first published in serial form
Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact
American post-apocalyptic novels
Novels about extraterrestrial life