“I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well.” —The New York Times
An inexplicable ecological disaster is rapidly making the Earth uninhabitable. The development of temporal displacement offers hope, but at the price of an unpredictable exit from time itself. But rebuilding a civilization will require more than ingenuity. Especially when forces beyond human understanding are waging an interstellar war, forging humanity into something unrecognizable.
ISBN: Print 978-1-61696-475-7 / Digital 978-1-61696-476-4
Published: 2027-05-04
Available Format(s): Trade paperback, Digital
Just before the Earth’s near-destruction, a father and daughter lead their community forty million years into the future—and beyond.
“I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well and who works with such confidence within its elastic boundaries.” —The New York Times
An inexplicable ecological disaster is rapidly making the Earth uninhabitable. Illinois scientist Jack Kenton, along with his family and a thousand or so residents of his hometown, take refuge at a mysterious research facility. There, Jack has been overseeing the development of temporal displacement: a novel technology that offers hope, but at the price of an unpredictable exit from time itself.
When Jack’s community emerges from temporal isolation into a wholly transformed Earth, rebuilding a civilization with few resources, while navigating clashing political and religious beliefs, will require more than ingenuity. Especially when forces beyond their understanding are waging an interstellar war, forging humanity into something unrecognizable.
After Jack’s daughter Laurel explores a massive, enigmatic structure at the shore of a nameless sea, she will learn what nearly drove her people to extinction—and what the future may hold for the survivors after forty million summers.
Forty Million Summers, the first new science fiction novel in ten years from Hugo Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson (Spin), is a major literary event in speculative fiction. It is a moving, sweeping exploration of inexplicable environmental collapse, the sociological and political friction of rebuilding society, and human resilience in the face of existential threats.
Praise for Robert Charles Wilson
“Robert Charles Wilson is a hell of a storyteller. . . . There’s plenty of imagination here, as well as character and heart.”
—Stephen King
“Wilson does so many fine things, it’s hard to know where to begin to praise him.”
—The Washington Post
“Robert Charles Wilson continues to surprise and delight. I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well and who works with such confidence within its elastic boundaries.”
—The New York Times
“Of all SF writers currently active, Robert Charles Wilson may well be the best at balancing cosmic drama with human drama.”
—Locus
Praise for Spin
[STARRED REVIEW] “One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking ‘what if,’ Wilson builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres.”
―Publishers Weekly
“Robert Charles Wilson is one of the best science-fiction writers alive, a fact borne out in his latest work . . . Spin is the best science-fiction novel so far this year.”
―Rocky Mountain News
“Wilson’s most ambitious and most successful novel to date . . . Wide-ranging and well-crafted.”
―San Diego Union-Tribune
“One of SF’s distinctive qualities, often derided by mainstream critics as a weakness, is its literalization of metaphor, but Wilson’s masterful exploitation of the Membrane’s fictional possibilities provides an exhilarating demonstration of why precisely the opposite can be true . . . Spin is also a family drama that would not be out of place on mainstream shelves . . . Spin is a provocative, frequently dazzling read.”
―SCIFI.COM
“Spin is many things: psychological novel, technological thriller, apocalyptic picaresque, cosmological meditation. But it is, foremost, the first major SF novel of 2005, another triumph for Robert Charles Wilson in a long string of triumphs.”
—Locus
Robert Charles Wilson has been writing science fiction since the publication of his very first novel in 1986. His novel Spin received the 2006 Hugo Award, the Seiun Award, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and the Kurd Lasswitz Prize. His novels The Chronoliths and Blind Lake were finalists for the Hugo Award. He received the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel Mysterium, and his short fiction has been collection, The Perseids and Other Stories, won the Prix Aurora Award. Wilson’s works have been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Italian. Born in California, Wilson has lived in Canada for most of his life; he currently resides just north of Toronto with his wife, Sharry Wilson.
Forty Million Summers
Robert Charles Wilson
“I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well.”
—The New York Times
An inexplicable ecological disaster is rapidly making the Earth uninhabitable. The development of temporal displacement offers hope, but at the price of an unpredictable exit from time itself. But rebuilding a civilization will require more than ingenuity. Especially when forces beyond human understanding are waging an interstellar war, forging humanity into something unrecognizable.
Forty Million Summers
by Robert Charles Wilson
ISBN: Print 978-1-61696-475-7 / Digital 978-1-61696-476-4
Published: 2027-05-04
Available Format(s): Trade paperback, Digital
Just before the Earth’s near-destruction, a father and daughter lead their community forty million years into the future—and beyond.
“I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well and who works with such confidence within its elastic boundaries.”
—The New York Times
An inexplicable ecological disaster is rapidly making the Earth uninhabitable. Illinois scientist Jack Kenton, along with his family and a thousand or so residents of his hometown, take refuge at a mysterious research facility. There, Jack has been overseeing the development of temporal displacement: a novel technology that offers hope, but at the price of an unpredictable exit from time itself.
When Jack’s community emerges from temporal isolation into a wholly transformed Earth, rebuilding a civilization with few resources, while navigating clashing political and religious beliefs, will require more than ingenuity. Especially when forces beyond their understanding are waging an interstellar war, forging humanity into something unrecognizable.
After Jack’s daughter Laurel explores a massive, enigmatic structure at the shore of a nameless sea, she will learn what nearly drove her people to extinction—and what the future may hold for the survivors after forty million summers.
Forty Million Summers, the first new science fiction novel in ten years from Hugo Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson (Spin), is a major literary event in speculative fiction. It is a moving, sweeping exploration of inexplicable environmental collapse, the sociological and political friction of rebuilding society, and human resilience in the face of existential threats.
Praise for Robert Charles Wilson
“Robert Charles Wilson is a hell of a storyteller. . . . There’s plenty of imagination here, as well as character and heart.”
—Stephen King
“Wilson does so many fine things, it’s hard to know where to begin to praise him.”
—The Washington Post
“Robert Charles Wilson continues to surprise and delight. I can’t think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well and who works with such confidence within its elastic boundaries.”
—The New York Times
“Of all SF writers currently active, Robert Charles Wilson may well be the best at balancing cosmic drama with human drama.”
—Locus
Praise for Spin
[STARRED REVIEW] “One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking ‘what if,’ Wilson builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres.”
―Publishers Weekly
“Robert Charles Wilson is one of the best science-fiction writers alive, a fact borne out in his latest work . . . Spin is the best science-fiction novel so far this year.”
―Rocky Mountain News
“Wilson’s most ambitious and most successful novel to date . . . Wide-ranging and well-crafted.”
―San Diego Union-Tribune
“One of SF’s distinctive qualities, often derided by mainstream critics as a weakness, is its literalization of metaphor, but Wilson’s masterful exploitation of the Membrane’s fictional possibilities provides an exhilarating demonstration of why precisely the opposite can be true . . . Spin is also a family drama that would not be out of place on mainstream shelves . . . Spin is a provocative, frequently dazzling read.”
―SCIFI.COM
“Spin is many things: psychological novel, technological thriller, apocalyptic picaresque, cosmological meditation. But it is, foremost, the first major SF novel of 2005, another triumph for Robert Charles Wilson in a long string of triumphs.”
—Locus
Robert Charles Wilson has been writing science fiction since the publication of his very first novel in 1986. His novel Spin received the 2006 Hugo Award, the Seiun Award, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and the Kurd Lasswitz Prize. His novels The Chronoliths and Blind Lake were finalists for the Hugo Award. He received the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel Mysterium, and his short fiction has been collection, The Perseids and Other Stories, won the Prix Aurora Award. Wilson’s works have been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Italian. Born in California, Wilson has lived in Canada for most of his life; he currently resides just north of Toronto with his wife, Sharry Wilson.