SOJALS rating:

Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this on the 10th December 2002.

the interactions of three couples will threaten not the future of humanity upon this Earth.

June Bellamy is walking in the woods in Vancouver. She sees and then experiences something unnatural and inexplicable. Oddly, a few minutes later she has forgotten all about this memorable experience.

Later she discovers that her memory had been altered. Horrified that her mind is no longer her own, that she can effectively no longer trust her own thoughts, she and her partner, Paul Throtmanian, determine to investigate. They have no idea just how dangerous this will be.

Wallace Kemp and Moira Rogers are serious SF fans, "secret masters of fandom". When they see a naked man apparently materialized out of thin air on their doorstep they know they're in for a profound learning experience. They don't expect this learning experience to be so very unpleasant.

Johnson and Myrna are superhuman, almost immortal and possessed of astonishing technology. They've hidden from humanity for thousands of years. Now they're jolted out of their passionate self-involvement to investigate an encroachment upon the Lifehouse that they have dedicated their lives to protecting. They discover that they're too late, by seconds, and that humanity's fate is in the balance.

I hope my comments above are sufficiently non-specific to give no idea of the exhilarating plot of this novel.

This has reaffirmed by long-held faith in Spider Robinson after it was somewhat shaken by "Starmind". One of the three couples featured in the novel are science fiction fans but Robinson avoids the undercurrent of embarrassment that such novels can possess (dare I mention that I'm thinking specifically of "Fallen Angels" here?)

The three couples are all rather intelligent and competent - disconcertingly so, in my view. But even with these hindrances (which have certainly never encumbered me) the plot is unusually entertaining.

What's it got? telepathy, immortality, superior technology and some great dialogue.