Echoes of Earth

I've been reading science fiction for 25 years, and these days it's rare for me to encounter something that evokes the same wonder and excitement I felt the first time I read Ringworld or the Foundation Trilogy. Echoes of Earth is just such a novel.This book held my attention from cover to cover, starting with the mystery of an alien race that bestows wonderous technological gifts to the first human interstellar explorers, and continuing with the frightening and awe-inspiring discovery by the explorers of just why Earth fell silent 100 years earlier. The conclusion of this book is the most surprising of all, but I will say nothing of that here, save that Williams and Dix take their storyline to an extreme that few authors would dare.One of the most gratifying things about Echoes of Earth is that the authors didn't just crank out a cookie cutter plot - there were plenty of unexpected surprises to keep me on my toes, and to lend a sense of freshness to the story. What's more, the choice of a damaged engram who is struggling to remain stable as the primary character adds another layer of interest to this novel. (An engram is a computer simulation of a human mind, based on the memories and personality of an actual person.)I can't really think of anything negative to say about this book. You should be forewarned, however, that when you get to the end you will immediately want to run out and purchase the next book in the series: Orphans of Earth. I know I did, because it's just that good!

Echoes of Earth is the first novel in a new series. It is the story of the destruction of civilization in the Solar System and the discovery of aliens with greatly superior technology, combining elements of Allen's Ring of Charon, Vinge's Marooned in Real Time, Williamson's Manseed and Pohl's Heechee series.In 2050, Earth begins to send out 1000 exploration ships containing engrams, cybernetic personality simulations, rather than actual humans. All the engram crews are based on only 60 personalities. One of these engrams, based on Peter Stanmore Alander, is particularly unstable, but all break down within a few decades.The engram ship Frank Tipler has the mission to Upsilon Aquarius. In 2160, the ship reaches its target and the engram crew begins their mission to study the solar system. They had lost communications with Earth shortly after they left, but are confident that Earth will contact them later. Alien ships suddenly enter the UA system and build 10 orbital towers -- beanstalks -- and an interconnecting ring in only a few hours as the engrams watch. Peter Alander, who has been permanently assigned an android body to slow down his personality deterioration, enters an alien device at the bottom of one tower and is carried up to orbit. There he encounters the Gifts, 11 artificial intelligences who control the advanced technology provided by the aliens as gifts to the less advanced humans. Among these gifts are devices to communicate and travel faster than light.The Gifts are programmed to obey only one person -- Peter Alander -- among the crew; the aliens, who the engrams call Spinners, apparently want the Gift recipients to absorb the new technology slowly to reduce cultural shock. However, the other engrams can operate the alien technology after learning the control interface protocols. Since the other engrams are running on the computers within the Frank Tipler and controlling drones remotely, Peter is the only engram that can operate the FTL ship at this time. After secret programming in one of the engrams almost destroys the mission, Peter takes the FTL ship back to Earth to ensure that information on the Spinner technology is not lost.The Solar System has changed drastically since the Frank Tipler left. The artificial intelligences have reached self-awareness and followed their own agenda, destroying the Earth and Venus to build the beginning of a Dyson sphere around the sun. The eruption of AI has almost wiped out the biological intelligences and only about 3 million are left. The surviving humans have incorporated cybernetic technology to form personality gestalts with multiple points of view. All these intelligences are joined to some extent into the Vincula, a sort of group mind, but some resist the conservatism of that body. One of the human gestalts is based on Caryl Hatzis, one of the engram contributors. When Alander arrives in the Solar System, he tries to contact the proper authorities, but finds that only H

Wow! What imagry! After reading this book I'm now very picky on others that I read. The pictures, situations, planets, travel... everything seemed to flow exactly with each other. I'll tell you this... don't stop reading untill the ending. Even after the climax keep reading, it'll give you insights on the sequal (in which there HAS to be one) plus things that will make you think for days.Hey, I liked this book so much I read it four times. I scan the book stand every time for it's sequal.

Having thourouhly enjoyed the Evergence series, I was thrilled to see another book by Dix and Williams. This book (hopefully the first in a series) is NOT a clone of their previous series. There is a different kind of action here, yet no less gripping in my opinion. I was drawn in within the first chapter and the book continued to fill my head with questions and provoked some interesting thoughts on some age old concepts involving our species. This book had a kind of "Michael Crichton" feel to it, a group of scientists trying to unravel a mysterious something. I intentionally am not putting any story details in my review, as that will be for each person to discover on thier own. I will say that just like Evergence, I had trouble putting the book down each night and am anxiously awaiting the next book. Dix and Williams have a knack for creating lush environments in which their interesting characters can interact.Keep em comin guys! You rock!

After surging to bestseller status with the impressive Convergence series, Sean Williams and Shane Dix return with a hard science fiction adventure that spans the stars. Peter Alander is a shadow of his former self in more ways than one, in a future where multiple copies of explorers have ventured out to see the universe, leaving their human bodies far behind on Earth. But, it is on the far edge of the universe that Alander and his shipmates discover something that Earth must hear about immediately. Or must it?Williams and Dix never deliver anything less than heart-pounding action and excitement in there collaborations and ECHOES OF EARTH is no exception. It's a world we will barely recognise as our own, peopled with creatures that no longer resemble us in anything but the most superficial way. And that's the most stunning aspect of this new world of Williams and Dix's creation: the aliens encountered are scarely more inhuman than what awaits Alander on Earth.No one in the genre is delivering more vivid, more mind-boggling far-space adventure than these two Australian authors. If you haven't caught onto their work yet, ECHOES OF EARTH is a perfect place to start. Don't blame me if you find yourself scrambling to find all their previous work, that's just the way it is with these guys...