"I must lead with a newcomer who brilliantly attempts to communicate a precarious truth about what we think is actuality... The effect is quite hallucinating; astonishing that such accomplishmkent is a first novel" - Tom Hutchinson (The Times)
"Intellectually The Embedding is the most spectacular thing in science fiction since the astounding Solaris by Stanislaw Lem" - Peter Nicholls (The Spectator)
With this sort of reception for his first book, Ian Watson would, we thought, be hard pressed for ideas for his second novel - particularly as the The Embedding was later to be nominated as one of the two "runners-up" for last year's John W. Campbell Award. He has, we believe, succeeded brilliantly.
The Jonah Kit tells the story of two apparently disconnected pieces of scientific research. In the Mexican mountains Nobel Prize-winner Paul Hammond has made the shattering discovery that signals received by his radio telescope show that God's created Universe no longer exists, and that what we perceive as the Universe is no more than a ghost of the real thing.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a young Russian boy is found who appears to possess the mind, though imperfect, of a Soviet astronaut who is supposedly dead.
These two events are linked, as we might have realised from the book's title, by the great whale population of the world's oceans.
Description:
"I must lead with a newcomer who brilliantly attempts to communicate a precarious truth about what we think is actuality... The effect is quite hallucinating; astonishing that such accomplishmkent is a first novel" - Tom Hutchinson (The Times) "Intellectually The Embedding is the most spectacular thing in science fiction since the astounding Solaris by Stanislaw Lem" - Peter Nicholls (The Spectator) With this sort of reception for his first book, Ian Watson would, we thought, be hard pressed for ideas for his second novel - particularly as the The Embedding was later to be nominated as one of the two "runners-up" for last year's John W. Campbell Award. He has, we believe, succeeded brilliantly. The Jonah Kit tells the story of two apparently disconnected pieces of scientific research. In the Mexican mountains Nobel Prize-winner Paul Hammond has made the shattering discovery that signals received by his radio telescope show that God's created Universe no longer exists, and that what we perceive as the Universe is no more than a ghost of the real thing. Meanwhile, in Japan, a young Russian boy is found who appears to possess the mind, though imperfect, of a Soviet astronaut who is supposedly dead. These two events are linked, as we might have realised from the book's title, by the great whale population of the world's oceans.