The Collapsium

A lot of science fiction literature takes a somewhat negative view of scientific progress, ‘cautionary tales' that point out the problems with scientific inquiry. I enjoy a lot of stories like that, but, when that type of story becomes too dominant within the genre, you end up with a very pessimistic view of things - I once heard an author refer to Michael Crichton's entire publishing history as “Here's a great scientific idea - AND HERE'S HOW IT WILL KILL US ALL.”

Fortunately, there are also books like The Collapsium, which take the view that the ultimate problem isn't science; if anything, it's people, who are going to be the ones to use science to evil ends. Fortunately for us, people are also the solution to all of our problems, because they're capable of incalculable acts of greatness and determination. Hanging between the two is the act of being human, the definition of which has been a driving force throughout all artistic endeavours since the dawn of humanity.

This was my first exposure to McCarthy's writing style, and I fell in love with it right away. At first it seems kind of flat and workmanlike, but then he has these brilliant little moments of wonderfully crafted literature in the middle of it, like the stars themselves puncuating the vacuum of space. The more I get into it, though, the more I realized that it isn't flat at all, but that there's a lot more subtlty going throughout it. I found myself rereading several passages mid-paragraph to make sure I got all of the nuance within it.

I enjoyed this book so much that I feel kind of bad that I only got it out of the library; I'll have to get a copy for my bookshelf some day.

A few weeks ago I was flipping through the New York Times Book Review when I came across a brief, favorable review for this science fiction tale. This one was pretty wild too. The author is a former rocket scientist who now works in the field of commercial robotics so the science within The Collapsium is both informed and a little dizzying. But you don't need to be a rocket scientist to enjoy this book (or even a super genius like me). The hero of the story is the brilliant scientist Bruno de Towaji, the inventor of collapsium, and a royal consort of Queen Tamra Lutui of Tonga, the figurehead queen of the solar system. Collapsium is collapsed matter in the form of egg-sized black holes which allow virtually instantaneous transmission of information and matter — including humans — throughout the solar system. Basically collapsium allows people to fax themselves to various fax ports set up throughout the solar system via a collapsium network. You can also create copies of yourself! While Bruno has been enjoying a self-imposed exile conducting experiments on his own manufactured planet, rival scientist Marlon Sykes has been busy building a ring of collapsium around the sun to improve the current collapsium network. But then a saboteur causes this Ring Collapsiter to fall toward the sun, imperiling the entire solar system, and Queen Tamra calls on Bruno de Towaji for help. I found this book to be as entertaining as it is bizarre. Not only does the author do wildly fun things with the element collapsium, but another element called wellstone is thrown in as well. Wellstone is programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance whether it be natural, artificial, or even hypothetical. McCarthy spins this improbable tale with wit, verve and humor and the result is a thrill-ride of wild science and adventure.