Language English Genre Science fiction novel Pages 246 Number of books 2 | Series Saga of Cuckoo Publication date 1975 ISBN 0-345-24330-7 Country United States of America | |
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Books Farthest Star, Wall Around a Star Publishers Ballantine Books, Del Rey Books Cover artists Philip Perlman, David Burroughs Mattingly | ||
The Saga of Cuckoo is a series of science fiction novels by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson. It consists of two novels:
Contents
Farthest Star (1975)
"Farthest Star" was published by Ballantine Books in 1975, as a fix-up of the 1973 novella "Doomship" and the 1974 serial "The Org's Egg".
Plot
Ben Charles Pertin, an engineer, is selected to be humanity's representative in a multi-race mission to reach "Object Lambda", a mysterious object traveling towards the galaxy at 1/6th lightspeed. Since the object is still approaching, Ben and the others are transported to the probeship Aurora by a matter duplication transporter. While the original goes on with his life, the duplicate (Ben James) and his Companion Doc Chimp, work with the rest of the beings to construct a faster drone to get a transporter in orbit of the object, racing against time as the ionizing radiation from the ship's fusion drive is slowly killing them. After a struggle, the drone is successfully launched, killing all on board.
The drone performs as planned and an orbiting habitat called Cuckoo Station is constructed. A new duplicate arrives, Ben Linc.
Wall Around a Star (1983)
Wall Around a Star was published by Del Rey Books on January 12, 1983, with an ISBN of 0-345-28995-1. The cover art for the 1983 edition was done by David Mattingly.
Plot
In this novel linguist Jen Babylon is called on to translate alien records which may explain the nature of "Cuckoo", a sphere built around a star, and thus save the galaxy.
Themes
The series explores several themes. The most used is the notion of an interstellar teleporter that leaves the original being behind and sends only a duplicate. When a person is duplicated, the original can just pass out of the machine without a second thought. However, the duplicate arrives at the destination with the same state of mind as the original, and thus is shocked to realize that he or she is now stranded far from home. Another is the fact that the copies can be 'edited' at destination.