Beyond Infinity

by Benford, Gregory

• ISBN13: 9780446530590
• ISBN10: 044653059X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-18
• Publisher: Aspect

Summary

Takes a scientist's imagination to the uttermost ends of time. Set more than a billion years from now, the novel begins with a young woman who yearns to escape the rigid, timeless Earth she knows. So she flees, in the company of an intelligent beast wise beyond recognition. But there are mysterious forces afoot among the planets that she never foresaw. Alien agencies have learned to span parallel universes, ones that lie only a millimeter away but are invisible to any device known to man. Soon these beings confront the travelers and a struggle beyond imagining begins.

Author Biography

Gregory Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine; a Woodrow Wilson Fellow; and the recipient of the Lord Prize for contributions to science

Table of Contents

I. Growing up Original	1	(28)
1. Cley	3	(10)
2. Being Natural	13	(3)
3. First Love, of Sorts	16	(5)
4. The Semi-Infinite Library	21	(4)
5. Growing Up Fast	25	(4)
II. A Universe in Ruins	29	(54)
1. Allies and Evil	31	(7)
2. Lessons of Pain	38	(7)
3. Aftermath	45	(6)
4. The Library of Life	51	(16)
5. A Larger Topology	67	(6)
6. To Dance on Time	73	(10)
III. Around the Curve of the Cosmos	83	(46)
1. Morphs	85	(6)
2. The Obscurantists	91	(4)
3. Tubeworld	95	(12)
4. The Fleshy Birds	107	(4)
5. Taking Flight	111	(4)
6. Quagma	115	(5)
7. The Black Brane	120	(9)
IV. The Malign	129	(46)
1. The Multifold	131	(5)
2. The Saintly	136	(7)
3. Damage	143	(4)
4. The Discovery of Forever	147	(11)
5. Flight	158	(8)
6. Biologic	166	(9)
V. The System Solar	175	(52)
1. Prey	177	(7)
2. Pinwheel	184	(12)
3. Jonah	196	(8)
4. Leviathan	204	(13)
5. Editing the Sun	217	(10)
VI. A Mad God	227	(64)
1. The Captain of Clouds	229	(10)
2. Skysharks	239	(11)
3. The Living Bridge	250	(12)
4. Continents Alive	262	(8)
5. Homo Technologicus	270	(7)
6. Blue Barnacles	277	(14)
VII. Malign Attentions	291	(46)
1. The Prison of Time	293	(10)
2. Closed Curves of the Timescape	303	(6)
3. The Meta-Universe	309	(13)
4. The Heresy of Humanism	322	(15)
Afterword	337