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"Tomorrow the Stars" by William Walling
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$13.95
Shipping Weight: 1.00 pounds
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ISBN 1-58939-412-7. $13.95. Softcover. 196 Pages.
Perplexed after a series of inexplicable appearances, Cosmologist Roger Shore is dismayed when an unearthly stranger materializes aboard orbiting Galileo Observatory and pointedly questions him about faster-than-light spacecraft development. Further baffled when only his voice registers on a recording of the exchange, Shore becomes fascinated when Galileo's director reveals the existence of a clandestine effort to make interstellar flight a reality. Sponsored by Alexis Lemmon, wealthy daughter of the revered Nobelist who "fathered" thermonuclear fusion power, Project Demeter was founded on the technological quantum leap achieved by a Chinese physicist. Invited to lend their expertise, Shore and a colleague join the intrepid crew in transit to Demeter's base in the asteroid belt, far from prying eyes among the sunward planets, where earthly Third World "have-nots" would violently oppose a profligate waste of resources on some fairy tale like starflight. The base's total isolation leaves Demeter's personnel vulnerable to hindrance and then near-lethal interference from a malicious, dedicated alien entity, for the stakes, Shore and his associates learn, are infinitely greater than they can imagine. Reaching the nearest star system-a culture-defining benchmark as well as triumph of technology-will apparently qualify humanity for inclusion in a vast, unnamed forum of intergalactic intelligences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Walling, a lifelong Californian, is a former aerospace engineer (Lockheed Missiles & Space Company). He was employed during the Desert Storm conflict by a Menlo Park producer of Flight Motion Simulators, and most recently as technical journalist for a supplier of Global Positioning Systems.Bill and Judy live in the heart of Silicon Valley, and have three daughters, and one grandson. Bill has published three novels which are no longer in print, plus science articles and numerous magazine novelettes and short stories, all of the latter in the speculative fiction genre. He has only recently returned to writing fiction. His hobbies are films, music and astronomy.
07/20/2008
Looking for a sequel, September 21, 2005
By ProofReaderMan [USA] - See all my reviews
Looking for a sequel to "The World I Left Behind Me" by William
Walling...because it's a pretty good SF novel from the 70's and it is
well written, similar to Heinlein's style in many respects showing
great promise, at least to ranking up there... Anyway, for this book
I discovered that it has been renamed "Tomorrow, the Stars" which
may sound familiar as Heinlein has a book by that very title...but
nothing else is the same [whew!].
The description under the "Tomorrow, the Stars" by Walling is
rather rushed, like a bad book report. Instead, here's what the
original "The World I Left Behind Me" has to say about itself:
[With this novel William Walling emerges as a major science fiction
talent. In THE WORLD I LEFT BEHIND ME an engaging crew, a
madcap scheme, and a brilliant technological rationale combine to
create a memorable adventure story. Roger Shore is perplexed
when the strange "Mr. Smith" materializes in his laboratory with
questions about the development of a faster-than-light vehicle; he
is even more surprised when tapes of the exchange record his
voice only; and thoroughly astounded when his supervisor reveals
the existence of just such a project and invites him to be a
member of the Project Demeter Team. Interstellar flight a reality!...]
The text goes on further, but I don't want to type the whole thing
out...if you compare the above quote with the newer-titled book's
description, you'll see the SF fans done a disservice by the newer
description....
Anyway: read this book if you like straightforward hard SF, it's
actually pretty good.
[like I say, I was looking for a sequel]
I hope this helps...
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