Текст книги "Burning Paradise"
Автор книги: Robert Charles Wilson
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She phoned Josh to let him know she was all right and that she would be leaving her uncle’s place soon. He said he was watching the war news on TV. Threats and negotiations had given way to an ominous silence. “Be careful driving home,” he said. He was hoarse—recovering from a winter cold—but the sound of his voice warmed her.
Buttoning her jacket, she asked Uncle Ethan whether he thought there would be a war.
“I don’t know. Without the hypercolony, there’s nothing to prevent it.”
“Nothing but common sense.”
“With which we’re not conspicuously well-supplied.”
“All the hypercolony ever had of humanity was what it took from us. You taught me that. If it exploited our technology, that’s because we have a genius for making things. If it exploited our economy, it’s because we have a genius for collaboration. And if we made peace, maybe we have a genius for peacemaking.”
“We have a genius for war, Cassie. I see evidence of it every day.”
“And a genius for hatred. Sure. But also a genius for love.”
“Our genius for love almost killed us.”
She tucked her hair under her woolen cap. “It made us vulnerable. But it’s not a weakness. It’s a strength.”
“Is it?” He gave her a tentative smile. “I hope you’re right.”
The temperature had dropped a good ten degrees by the time she got back to the car. The streets were only barely passable. But the snow had stopped falling, the wind had subsided, the sky was clear, and it was possible to see the way ahead.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Informal conversations with friends and family were indispensable to the writing of Burning Paradise. It would be impossible to do justice to them all, but I need to single out old friends John S. Barker (for a discussion about the philosophical concept of qualia, which contributed to my conception of the hypercolony and the simulacra) and Taral Wayne (for countless conversations about cosmology, evolution and the nature of sentience).
Readers might be interested to know that the laser-launch technology I gave to the parasitized breeding ground is a real and potentially practical way of putting small payloads into orbit and is currently under investigation by several agencies and aerospace firms. The Atacama Desert has been suggested as a possible launch site.
As a source on insect behavior and the concept of distributed intelligence, E. O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth and The Superorganism (written with Bert Hölldobler) were useful. For the daunting task of imagining a largely peaceful twentieth-century Europe, Tony Judt’s Postwar was an invaluable resource. And while much has been written on the subject of the Atacama Desert, Lake Sagaris’s Bone and Dream stands out as a deeply thoughtful and wonderfully evocative example.
BY ROBERT CHARLES WILSON
FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
A Hidden Place
Darwinia
Bios
The Perseids and Other Stories
The Chronoliths
Blind Lake
Spin
Axis
Julian Comstock
Mysterium
Vortex
Burning Paradise
Copyright
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BURNING PARADISE
Copyright © 2013 by Robert Charles Wilson
All rights reserved.
Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden
A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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www.tor-forge.com
Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3261-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-0076-2 (e-book)
CIP DATA—TK
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First Edition: November 2013
Printed in the United States of America
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