Tau Zero

SF Masterworks 64 - an unflinchingly hard science fiction story about a group of highly trained scientists and planet colonisers stranded in space in a craft that is steadily approaching light speed, know as Tau Zero in this reality; there's some focus on the crew dynamics, but this is mostly all ha......more

The dark cold is all, a starless night the eyes look but can not see, the eternal blackness, sinks into the very soul in an uneasy calm which never ends in the forever Space nothing no lights viewed, perpetual shivers and fright, we are alone in the Cosmos traveling in an inhabited starship of weari......more

Tau zero Poul Anderson is a writer's writer, David Brin, Vernor Vinge and others swear by him and Vinge even dedicated his epic A Deepness in the Sky to him. His influence on their work is fairly obvious, Anderson knew his science and was able to employ that knowledge to max effect in his fiction. He......more

Poul Anderson doesn't understand Special Relativity very well (an interstellar ramscoop spaceship can't carry on accelerating indefinitely, for all sorts of reasons). His understanding of General Relativity is even worse. Even if the Universe is cyclical, whatever would it mean to be outside the mon......more

As a novel to showcase ideas, it succeeds. As a novel to showcase misogyny and thin characters in an attempt to bring real storytelling to hard SF, not so much. I'll talk of the good parts first. I learned, or eventually recalled something that hadn't immediately made a connection to me right away bu......more