Picoverse

by Robert A. Metzger

Book Overview

Picoverse: a universe one million-millionth of our own, created by deliberately ripping apart the fabric of space-time. A big-bang of an adventure, Robert Metzger's Picoverse boldly embraces the grand traditions of the genre, while exploding beyond the limits of knowledge, beyond the edges of the imagination, and beyond the boundaries of the universe as we know it. Probably the most daring SF novel since Ringworld, ..mind-boggling. (F. Paul Wilson,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441008992
• ISBN13: 9780441008995
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Attractive!

This book is very attractive, I can't put it down once I started to read it. The author uses the physics theory and his imagination to make this novel sounds real.The languages are simple and humerous. I can't help laughing, when I saw the words like" Clinton resigned in 1997", "if you can do research, do research; if you can't do research, do teach;if you can't teach, be a committee chair". And as a Georgia Tech student, when I read those familiar names, Van-leer building, 14th street, and even some korean names, it's very funny to me. I have recommended it to my friends, and they like it too. I gave it five stars, for the story and the language.It's not a perfect book though. I want to read more love stories as a female reader (yes, not only male readers like sci-fi), instead of Jack and Katie thought they had met before at the first look; then afer that, they just fell in love. Only great love can make a book marvellous. This book tells more about the love between a mother and son.And unavoidable, it is trapped into some time-machine story, you either have to go back to the history or have to get into future. Once none of this works, you have to erase it from the beginning.I think the first part is great,it's definietely different from the other sci-fi stories.But in the second part, when you found you were one a time machine, it becomes an old story,though you'll meet different people and changed different part of history.Anyway, I am waiting for the second book to see where it will starts ( maybe NC this time?) and where it takes us to.

A Fun Adventure

Hard-SF can at times be a tough grind to work through - very serious stuff where the characters and plot plod along as every bolt is fully tightened and the electron's mass is figured correctly to the tenth decimal place. While Picoverse is hard-SF it suffers from none of this. Packed with a wide range of science, it is obvious that Metzger intended this to also be a FUN ADVENTURE - probably over the top for those hard-SF readers worried about that tenth decimal place. In a story where you've got new universes being spewed out, Neanderthals in asteroids, planets bouncing around like ricochetting marbles, and Joseph Stalin in nothing but a pair of shorts, you should not expect standard hard-SF. And thankfully you don't get it here. Instead you find an adventure, an incredibly fast story where the plot whips you from one reality to the next, with entire universes threatening to roll up over the characters, and all of this adventure driven by some really interesting fictional physics (though a lot of it seems like it could be real). It's hard-SF, it's adventure, it's mighty fun to read, and the twisty plot takes you places you would have never expected to go.

2002 Nebula Finalist

It is amazing how polarized the viewpoints are on this book. It seems that some don't like it because it is not what they thought it was going to be. I suppose if you want to know just what you're going to read before you open the book that you shouldn't read this one, because you can never guess what is going to happen next. It starts off with those elements of hard SF - the experiment gone wrong and the scientists trying to figure it out, but from there it moves out in unexpected directions, ranging from a large chunk of alternate history in the 1920-1930s, a future where Jupiter and Saturn have been radically modified, to Neanderthals who are not quite what they seem. And then the ending is great, tying together everything(and even something in the reader's world - don't want to say more and spoil it). And I guess that other people like it too, since I just saw that this book is a finalist on the 2002 Nebula list, along with such books as American Gods and Perdido Street Station. If you want some surprises, give this a read.

Ignore the Complaints. This is good stuff!

This is a good book. It's Metzger's second book and if this is his starting off point, I can't wait to see where things go from here. There are more ideas packed in these pages than many others get into four novels. Ignore the complaints. There are good characters, good ideas, and a lot of fun. The reviewer upset about aliens in the plot -- well, there are and if you can't accept it, then that's your problem. It works in this book. In fact, it's essential. Without them, the story unravels and is pointless.