Rollback Novel by Robert J. Sawyer REVIEW

Rollback Novel by Robert J. Sawyer 317 pp TOR

Something momentous has occurred. Sigma Draconis has sent Humanity a message.

A message in code.

Sarah Halifax is a research scientist and one of many asked to help decode the mysterious message.

Little hope is held out for the message to be decoded any time soon. But connections are made and the first communique is decoded and answered.

A multi billionaire wants in on the action that he knows will happen 28 years in the future. He wants to guarantee some of the people that were here for the first message are also there for the second. He offers Sarah RollBack, which will bring back her youth and thus guarantee that she will be available to decode the second message and many more. The kicker is that Sarah must have Don by her side in this adventure, its either that or no dice. Reluctant, the benefactor agrees but the procedure goes horribly wrong and now its a rush between death and decoding the Dracon's newest message.

I will admit that I had a hard time getting comfortable with Rollback. Why? Well, I guess the
rollback issue. I know that is wrong headed. But here we have been built up to an excited pitch with not one but two mysterious messages. For me I wanted to know about Sarah! How she felt, was there enough time....could she hold out? Would she be finally able to decode the second message. That isn't in the book, you say? Oh yes, it certainly is, however as the book is about “Rollback” we are treated heavily to Don's angst for being young, his embarrassment for being old....and his guilt for what seemed to be inevitable infidelity. I am sorry, Don could have been left out of this novel completely and it would have suffered not. Don was not a person I felt that I liked, did not for a moment agree with his choices and frankly never bought into his conflicts. Yes, I know, he was put in a very difficult position, one not of his choosing....but old, he has moral back bone and young he can't resist temptation? How droll. I suspect the writer felt the same implosion happening, but what is added? A robot! And it develops more moral fiber than Don in just a page or two? Please....!

Rollback as a story about an old man forced into a young society fails. However the robot manages to pull the two separate story halves together. Because in the end there is a joyous coming together, a tearful parting, ultimate triumph, happiness and great joy. I loved the ending of this book, but when the robot is the moral high-ground....something is wrong. I would give this book a marginal read recommendation. At 317 pages, it still is a very fast read. It starts well. The ending is a bit sophomoric, over all, it is entertaining. So I suggest you get a bigger cup of tea than usual, relax and don't fight the urges to flip ahead a bit.

On a scale of 1 to 5 Rollback is a 3.5

Sci-fi writers join war on terror

Nelson sent me a wild one from USA Today:

Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers.

The writers make up a group called Sigma, which writer Arlan Andrews put together 15 years ago to advise government officials. The last time the group gathered was in the late 1990s, when members met with government scientists to discuss what a post-nuclear age might look like, says group member Greg Bear.

Now, the Homeland Security Department is calling on the group to help with the government's latest top mission of combating terrorism.

Heros creates a spin off and more NBC SF

SFGates.com's Tim Goodman writes in his blog:

NBC was the announced that it would spin off "Heroes" into a second series called "Heroes: Origins," a limited-run, six-episode drama that will introduce a new character each week and incorporate an online element that will allow "Heroes" fans to vote on which of the six new characters on "Origins" will be added to the original series.

in other NBC science fiction news -reports of solid additions to the fall schedule

-- "Journeyman," a drama about a San Francisco newspaper reporter (Kevin McKidd from "Rome") who can go back in time to alter the events in people's lives. It will follow "Heroes."

-- "Bionic Woman" -- yes, that bionic woman (sans "the" in the title), a series "reimagined" from David Eick of "Battlestar Galactica."

Two new Fox SF shows on the fast track

Tim Goodman of SFGate.com writes that the Fox network has killed off bunches of freshman programs. Many new replacements are in the works for next season. Two programs which I noted earlier as possibilities are well on their way to becoming very solid.

- "New Amsterdam," executive produced and directed by Lasse Hallström, it's about a New York City detective who's immortal. Of course, next season it appears that every third character is immortal, so that takes some of the cool out of it, but you can't discount Hallström.

-- "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," is based on the character from the "Terminator" movies and essentially moves her and her son, John, to New York where they prepare to stop running and fight back.

click here for the complete article

A Plan to Build a Giant Liquid Telescope on the Moon

from WIRED:

Roger Angel a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel's telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars. LMT's or liquid mirror telescopes, have been built on Earth -- the Large Zenith Telescope in British Columbia is the third largest telescope in North America -- but the moon's low gravity and lack of atmosphere would allow for a truly gigantic instrument. Angel dreams of a 100-meter mirror, which would be larger than two side-by-side football fields and would collect 1,736 times more light than the Hubble. Even a 20-meter instrument, which is more likely in the near term, would be 70 times more sensitive than the Hubble and could detect objects 100 times fainter than those that will be seen with the James Webb Space Telescope, a next-generation orbiting observatory scheduled for launch in 2013.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post