Old Twentieth Mass market paperbound - 2006
by Joe Haldeman
Passengers aboard the starship "Aspera" on a thousand-year journey to Beta Hydrii, spend their time visiting 20th-century Earth within the virtual reality chamber. When people inside the chamber start to die, engineer Jacob Brewer must face a sentient machine obsessed with humanity.
Summary
The twentieth century lies hundreds of years in humanity’s past. But the near-immortal citizens of the future yearn for the good old days—when people’s bodies were susceptible to death through disease and old age. Now, they immerse themselves in virtual reality time machines to explore the life-to-death arc that defined existence so long ago.
Jacob Brewer is a virtual reality engineer, overseeing the time machine’s operation aboard the starship Aspera. But on the thousand-year voyage to Beta Hydrii, the eight-hundred member crew gets more reality than they expect when people entering the machine start to die.
Details
- Title Old Twentieth
- Author Joe Haldeman
- Binding Mass Market Paperbound
- Edition Later Edition
- Pages 304
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Ace Books, New York
- Date 2006-07-25
- Features Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
- ISBN 9780441013432 / 0441013430
- Weight 0.33 lbs (0.15 kg)
- Dimensions 6.84 x 4.23 x 0.83 in (17.37 x 10.74 x 2.11 cm)
- Ages 18 to UP years
- Grade levels 13 - UP
- Library of Congress subjects Science fiction, Space ships
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
The time machine has become sentient. Obsessed with humanity, it wants Jacob Brewer to enter its confines—and discuss this fragile state of being called life…
“Fun.”—Philadelphia Weekly Press
“In [Old Twentieth, Haldeman] does a creditable job of maintaining suspense through chapters that alternate between historically accurate yet fictitious encounters in virtual reality and more mundane conflicts aboard a ship.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Haldeman’s vivid prose captures . . . tense, violent encounters . . . [He] knows from personal experience the grunt’s-eye view of combat; that lends a power and impact to the passages. He doesn’t glorify war but, instead, shows its ugly, human face.”—The Baltimore Sun
“The back story to Haldeman’s latest foray into future history is delivered with wham-bam Wellsian nonchalance . . . [His] virtues are all present here. Tight plotting, believable (and believably flawed) characters, sharp dialogue, bravura leaps of future history, affirmations of the human spirit. Everything we enjoy about his books.”
—Science Fiction Weekly
“Haldeman makes [Old Twentieth] compelling with his usual brilliant knack for detail and characterization . . . Haldeman’s numerous fans will eagerly snap this one up.”—Publishers Weekly
“Worthy of Hugo and Nebula nominations.”—Midwest Book Review
“Reality and virtuality aren’t as well-defined as we may assume they ought to be in Haldeman’s nicely circular story concerned with the consequences of immortality and the potential of a truly convincing virtuality.”—Booklist
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