Book description
Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past - and soon to be haunted by
the future. In early twenty-first-century Thailand, Scott is an
expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an
impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in
the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile
around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of
ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of
matter. And the inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military
victory...sixteen years in the future.
Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of
Bangkok - obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next
several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals
from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord
"Kuin" whose victories they note?
Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But some strange look of
causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final
battle with the future. Robert Charles Wilson (1953 - )
Robert Charles Wilson was born in California in 1953 but has spent most
of his life in Canada, acquiring citizenship in 2007. He has won the
Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell Memorial
Awards, and has been described by Stephen King as 'probably the finest
science fiction author now writing'. Robert Charles Wilson lives near
Toronto in Canada.
