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![]() | Eternal Light (1991) (The third book in the Four Hundred Billion Stars series) A novel by Paul McAuley |
Arthur C. Clarke Award (nominee)
In the aftermath of an interstellar war an enigmatic star is discovered, travelling towards the Solar System from the galactic core. Its appearance adds a new and dangerous factor in the turbulent politics of the inhabited worlds as the rival factions - the power-holders of the ReUnited Nations, the rebels who secretly oppose their power, and the Religious Witnesses - all see advantages to be gained. But what awesome technology started the star on its journey half a million years ago - and why?With this, his third novel, Paul J. McAuley stopped being merely promising and entered the front rank of British SF authors. The galactic backdrop already visited in his earlier books Four Hundred Billion Stars and Secret Harmonies here opens out at huge and exhilarating scale. Our galaxy is infested with quarrelling factions of the irrationally hostile alien Alea, against whose colonies the crumbling and partly decadent human Federation wages a depressing, genocidal war of self-defence. Now an anomalous star travelling at daunting speed has arrived from the galactic core and offers rapid wormhole transit to the centre--where ambitious Alea are building the most gigantic habitats in SF, hyperstructures light-years across. This project's use of energies from outside the universe endangers the cosmos: "Something is rubbing the fabric of space-time thin enough to allow creation to shine through." Only pure mathematical weaponry supplied by advanced "angels" from a fractal reality can stop the unravelling of space. But the ramshackle human mission to the core is beset by strife, religious fanaticism, greed and mutiny, and looks set for bloody failure even before the Alea unleash their own superweapon. A rich, crowded novel that combines exotic descriptions, slam-bang action and a mind-blowing secret history of the universe. --David Langford
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Used availability for Paul J McAuley's Eternal Light
See all available used copies of this book at: Abebooks UK or Abebooks US
Hardback Editions
September 1993 : Hardback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul J. McAuley ISBN: 0688127576 / 9780688127572 (USA edition) Publisher: William Morrow Availability: Amazon Amazon CA Amazon UK |
June 1991 : Hardback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul McAuley ISBN: 0575049316 / 9780575049314 (UK edition) Publisher: Gollancz Availability: Amazon CA Amazon UK Amazon |
Paperback Editions
September 2009 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul McAuley ISBN: 0575086610 / 9780575086616 (UK edition) Publisher: Gollancz Availability: Amazon UK Amazon |
April 2009 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul McAuley ISBN: 0575086408 / 9780575086401 (UK edition) Publisher: Gollancz Availability: Amazon Amazon CA Amazon UK |
September 1999 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul McAuley ISBN: 1857989104 / 9781857989106 (UK edition) Publisher: Gollancz Availability: Amazon UK Amazon Amazon CA |
August 1994 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul J. McAuley ISBN: 038076623X / 9780380766239 (USA edition) Publisher: Avon Books (Mm) Availability: Amazon Amazon CA Amazon UK |
September 1993 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul J. McAuley ISBN: 0380972271 / 9780380972272 (USA edition) Publisher: Avon Books Availability: Amazon CA Amazon Amazon UK |
March 1993 : Paperback
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul J. Mcauley ISBN: 1857230159 / 9781857230154 (UK edition) Publisher: Orbit Availability: Amazon CA Amazon UK Amazon |
Kindle Editions
December 2010 : Kindle edition
| Title: Eternal Light Author(s):: Paul McAuley ISBN: B004GHN2US Publisher: Gateway Availability: Amazon UK |
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