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Summary
Summary
Greg Egan's Perihelion Summer is a story of people struggling to adapt to a suddenly alien environment, and the friendships and alliances they forge as they try to find their way in a world where the old maps have lost their meaning.
Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system.
Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever.
Praise for Perihelion Summer
"Egan here doubles down on climate change with his typically rigorous exploration of a cosmic accident's effect on Earth and all its people. His characters are sharp and funny and their courageous response to the massive challenge they face works as a spur to cause us to think--why couldn't we do as well with our own great challenge? This is what the best science fiction can do that no other genre can, and we need it now more than ever. Bravo!" -- Kim Stanley Robinson
Author Notes
GREG EGAN is a computer programmer, and the author of many acclaimed science fiction novels. He has won the Hugo Award as well as the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Egan's short fiction has been published in a variety of places, including Interzone , Asimov's , Nature , and Tor.com . Dichronauts is the first novel in a new science fiction universe. He lives in Australia.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hugo-winner Egan (Phoresis) postulates a bleak too-near future in this hard SF apocalyptic tale of abrupt climate change sparked by a binary black hole rapidly approaching Earth. Young Australian scientist Matt Fleming is testing a new kind of aquaculture with the Mandjet, an innovative "floating fish farm" that can withstand sea level changes. As a fearfully hot summer and an equally violent winter cause crop failures and widespread disaster across the planet, Matt struggles to bring his parents and sister to relative safety on Mandjet, battling both the Australian government's lack of preparation and his relatives' personal denial of the looming tragedy. Traveling with a ragtag flotilla to Antarctica, Matt and his shipmates develop a grim plan for survival that seems to be humankind's only hope of enduring Earth's rapid collapse. Egan's rapid-fire plot, full of convincing scientific detail, and his sympathetically drawn characters of various races and backgrounds make this a vivid commentary both on societies' stubborn refusal to face an environmental threat and individuals' determination to survive it. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Near-future catastrophe devastates the Southern Hemisphere: another entry from Egan (Phoresis, 2018, etc.) that's more than a novella yet less than a novel.A small black hole, Taraxippus (taraxippoi were horse-frightening demons believed to haunt racetracks throughout ancient Greece), enters the solar system. Matt Fleming and his friends, concerned about the possible effects of the black hole's passage, invest in a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power, and fresh water, reasoning that they'll be safe at sea no matter what climatic effects might occur. Taraxippus, however, proves to be a double whammy: two black holes orbiting one another. They don't harm the planet directly but do pass close enough to permanently perturb Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun. Almost immediately, Southern Hemisphere summers grow considerably hotter, with winters much colder (the north experiences cooler summers and warmer winters), rendering much of Australia and South America uninhabitable and accelerating the melting of the Antarctic icecap. In a series of quick, vivid sketches, Egan shows us how, for those aboard the Mandjet and their friends and relatives still on land, lifethe entire planetwill change forever. As a metaphor representing global climate change, it's effective enough; more than 30 years ago, another Australian, George Turner, did something comparable in Drowning Towers. This lacks that book's weight and complexity, though it's certainly a noteworthy contribution to a debate whose implications Egan is content to leave to our imaginations.More an appetizer than an entree. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Once again, Egan (Phoresis, 2018) demonstrates his mastery of short-form science fiction. In Perihelion Summer, he takes on climate change from a unique angle a micro-black hole passes close to Earth, changing its orbit and making the seasons more extreme and deadly, with swaths of the planet rendered uninhabitable. A group who built a self-sustaining aquaculture rig in the Indian Ocean to ride out the black hole now find themselves needing to navigate dangerous seas in search of survivable temperatures. Egan packs quite a lot into such a short book: science and engineering, family relationships and personal conflicts, global politics and danger. He presents a human tapestry in a time of disaster through evocative highlights of how people adapt to sudden crisis. This is a warning for how bad things could get if climate change is left unchecked. It's a cautionary tale of the need for us to be prepared. But it's also a beacon of hope a story of survival at great cost. Difficult and painful as it may be, we find a way.--John Keogh Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Egan (Phoresis) brings his reliably rigorous intelligence and its humane application to exploring the effects of a cosmic accident on Earth. Taraxippus, a black hole one-tenth the mass of the sun, enters the solar system. Astronomers track it, and model potential gravitational effects on Earth's orbit. Summers will be hotter, winters will be colder; crops will fail, as will the natural processes crucial to sustaining forests and reefs. Egan chronicles the real world impact by focusing on the team operating the Mandjet, a mobile aquaculture rig capable of providing its own food, water, and power. On the human scale, reactions range from denial to skepticism, resignation to suicide. Egan's mastery shines in characterization, where even four gun-toting hijackers succumb to dread and, ultimately, their better selves. VERDICT The mix of science, adventure, and philosophical probing of extinction will likely appeal to readers of Nnedi Okorafor, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, and Louise Erdrich, and fans of complex sociological/environmental scenarios.-William Grabowski, McMechen, WV © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.