The Collapsium

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A MODERN SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC FROM WIL MCCARTHY

SAVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM FROM THE ULTIMATE COLLAPSE

In the eighth decade of the Queendom of Sol, three commodities rule the day. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal composed of miniature black holes, vital for the transmission of information and matterincluding humansthroughout the Solar System. The third is the bitter rivalry between Her Majesty's top scientists.

Bruno de Towaji, famed lover and statesman, dreams of building an arc de fin, an almost mythical device capable of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime. Marlon Sykes, de Towaji's rival in both love and science, is meanwhile hard at work on a vast telecommunications project whose first step is the construction of a ring of collapsium around the Sun. But when a ruthless saboteur attacks the Ring Collapsiter and sends it falling into the Sun, the two scientists must put aside personal animosity and combine their prodigious intellects to prevent the destruction of the Solar Systemand every living thing within it.

AboutThe Collapsium:
Ingenious and witty . . . as if Terry Pratchett at his zaniest and Larry Niven at his best had collaborated.Booklist

"Fresh and imaginative. From a plausible yet startling invention, McCarthy follows the logical lines of sight, building in parallel the technological and societal innovations."Science Fiction Weekly

"The future as McCarthy sees it is a wondrous place." Publishers Weekly

"[McCarthy] studs his narrative with far-out scientific concepts. . . .He certainly has a sense of humor."The New York Times

An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details, and plenty of twists and turns.Kirkus

Author Bio

Engineer/novelist/journalist/entrepreneur WilMcCarthy is a former contributing editor forWIREDmagazine and science columnist for the SyFychannel. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick awards. His short fiction has graced the pages of Analog, Asimovs, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable Bloom, Amazon.com Best of Y2K The Collapsium(a national bestseller), To Crush the Moon, and Antediluvian. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines.

Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for OmnitechRobotics and founder/president/CTO of Raven Brick LLC, McCarthy hold patents of his own in seven countries, including twenty-nine issued U.S. patents in thefield of nanostructuredoptical materials.