Enormous Big Things
Ross Smith
compiling a list of stories about "megastructures" -- ringworlds, Dyson
spheres, and so forth. Here's what I've come up with so far; anyone know
of any more? (My definition of a "megastructure" is an artifical structure
comparable in size to a planet or larger. I'm including things like orbital
towers as well as larger objects like ringworlds.)
A star indicates books where a megastructure is mentioned but is not central
to the story.
* Iain M Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (?)
Greg Bear, "Eon" (?), "Eternity" (?)
Greg Bear, "Hegira" (?)
Terry Bisson, "Wyrldmaker" (1981)
Jack Chalker, Well of Souls series (five books, can't remember titles or
dates)
Arthur C Clarke, "The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
* Harry Harrison, "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (?)
Colin Kapp, Cageworld series (four books, can't remember titles or dates)
Larry Niven, "Ringworld" (1970), "The Ringworld Engineers" (1980)
Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, "Farthest Star" (1975), "Wall Around a Star"
(1983)
Terry Pratchett, "Strata" (1981)
Tony Rothman, "The World is Round (?)
Bob Shaw, "Orbitsville" (?) and two sequels whose titles escape me
Brian Stableford, "Journey to the Centre" (?), "Invaders from the Centre" (?)
Charles Sheffield, "The Web Between the Worlds" (?)
* Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker" (?)
(Can anyone fill in some of the missing dates for me?)
--
...... Ross Smith (Wanganui, NZ) ...... al...@acheron.amigans.gen.nz ......
"I blame you for the moonlit sky and the dream that died with the Eagle's flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights when I wonder why are the seas still dry
Don't blame me, sleeping satellite" (Tasmin Archer)
--
David Goldfarb
many are springing to my mind.
*David Brin Sundiver (He mentions "Vanilla and Chocolate Needles"
which are not really explained but which seem to be orbital towers.)
James White Federation World
John Varley The "Titan" trilogy -- _Titan_, _Wizard_, and _Demon_.
You might want to include Larry Niven's non-fiction article
_Bigger than Worlds_, which is collected in (I think) _Neutron Star_.
If artificially created or landscaped planets count, then you
could include Philip Jose' Farmer's "Riverworld" series. (I forget all
the books in it by now, but the main series is _To Your Scattered Bodies
Go_, _The Fabulous Riverboat_, _The Dark Design_, and _The Magic Labyrinth_).
Also _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_.
Somtow Sucharitkul's "Inquestor" series featured an artifical
livable surface around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
I forget what it was called. The titles are _The Light on the Sound_,
_The Throne of Madness_, _Utopia Hunters_, and _The Darkling Wind_.
_The Throne of Madness_, in particular, was set in large part on this
planet.
--
David Goldfarb |
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "Hey, mister! Your ninja's dragging!"
gold...@UCBOCF.BITNET |
gold...@soda.berkeley.edu |
Phil Anderson
In article <alien...@acheron.amigans.gen.nz>
al...@acheron.amigans.gen.nz writes:
> of any more? (My definition of a "megastructure" is an artifical structure
> comparable in size to a planet or larger. I'm including things like orbital
> towers as well as larger objects like ringworlds.)
One that depends on your definition of "artificial:
Aldiss's "Hothouse" has "cobwebs" stretching between the Earth and
Moon.
----------------------------------------------
Phil Anderson *** ha...@sloth.equinox.gen.nz
----------------------------------------------
"No-one is equal to anyone else!"
Craig Becker
al...@acheron.amigans.gen.nz (Ross Smith) writes:
> For lack of anything intelligent to do (it's a slow weekend), I've been
> compiling a list of stories about "megastructures" -- ringworlds, Dyson
> spheres, and so forth.
> A star indicates books where a megastructure is mentioned but is not central
> to the story.
>
> * Iain M Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (?)
also Banks' _The Player Of Games_ and _The Use Of Weapons_ feature the
usual orbitals and General Systems Vehicles. And hopefully, the forth-
coming _Against A Dark Background_ will, too.
> Greg Bear, "Eon" (?), "Eternity" (?)
> Greg Bear, "Hegira" (?)
> Terry Bisson, "Wyrldmaker" (1981)
> Jack Chalker, Well of Souls series (five books, can't remember titles or
> dates)
> Arthur C Clarke, "The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
> * Harry Harrison, "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (?)
> Colin Kapp, Cageworld series (four books, can't remember titles or dates)
> Larry Niven, "Ringworld" (1970), "The Ringworld Engineers" (1980)
> Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, "Farthest Star" (1975), "Wall Around a Star"
> (1983)
> Terry Pratchett, "Strata" (1981)
> Tony Rothman, "The World is Round (?)
> Bob Shaw, "Orbitsville" (?) and two sequels whose titles escape me
> Brian Stableford, "Journey to the Centre" (?), "Invaders from the Centre" (?)
> Charles Sheffield, "The Web Between the Worlds" (?)
Sheffield also has a series of books called something like "The Inheritor
Universe" that features a number of baffling-but-big artifacts.
> * Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker" (?)
George R. R. Martin, _Tuf Voyaging_, features both the _Ark_ and the S'uthlam
orbital elevator.
*sigh* I _know_ that as soon as I hit "send" I'll think of six others...
Craig
--
-- "You will have the tallest, Craig Becker, Object Technology Products --
-- darkest leading man in Internet: jlpi...@austin.ibm.com --
-- Hollywood." IBM TR: jlpi...@woofer.austin.ibm.com --
-- - Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray VNET: JLPICARD at AUSVM1 --
Matthew P Wiener
else--is an artificial creation.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Dan'l DanehyOakes
...
about what he calls "megastructures," as worthy a concept for making these silly
canonical lists the net is always making as anything else, I suppose.
Lessee.
Things not included that seem worth mentioning:
Douglas Adams: The planet Earth is a megastructure in the "Hitchhiker's Guide"
universe, built by the people of Magrathea. You might also want to include
Marvin the Paranoid Android, who has a "brain the size of a planet," but I think
that may not refer to physical size :*)
Kevin Anderson and Doug Beason: in the category for "smallest megastructure,"
their novel LIFELINE features the creation of monomolecular fibers long enough
to stretch between L5 and L3, or between L5 and the surface of the Moon, as well
as a plausible-enough-for-a-story-anyway way of making them useful.
Isaac Asimov: The surface of Trantor is entirely artificial. (Hey, the surface
of a planet is "as big as" a planet, neh?) And at the end of "The Last
Question," a computer gets into artificial universe creation.
James Blish: In THEY SHALL HAVE STARS, the first part of "Cities in Flight,"
an object called "The Bridge" is being built on the surface of Jupiter which I
recall as being of megastructure size -- thought it's tiny on Jupiter, of
course.
Arthur C. Clarke: This might be pushing the boundaries, but. . . in 2010, a
bunch of Slabs start replicating themselves, converting the entire surface of
Jupiter into an extension of Slabbovia, and then unite into a single structure,
which compresses the gas giant into a neostar. ("Something wonderful.") And,
I may be wrong, but. . . Aren't Vanamonde and The Mad Mind from "Against the
Fall of Night" sentient megastructures?
Cordwainer Smith: the paper-mache ship the size of a solar system in "Golden
the Ship Was, Oh! Oh! Oh!" Also, I seem to recall that the sails that propel
some of his solar wind sailing vessels in stories like "The Lady Who Sailed
_the_Soul_" are measured in thousands of miles, many of them. In fact, his work
is all *full* of humonguous things.
John Varley's TITAN probably doesn't count. because the Titan is a living thing,
not artificial. . .
********************************************************************************
ALTERNATE MEDIA STUFF:
In the randomly wonderful and stupid world of comix, DC's thirtieth century
world of the "Legion of Super-Heroes" was once wrapped entirely in saran-wrap.
More seriously: it was surrounded, atmosphere and all, by a "polymer shield,"
whose purpose was only slightly less mysterious than its engineering.
Eventually it was (I kid you not) stolen.
I suppose you might also want to include the Dyson sphere from the recent ST:TNG
episode "Relics." [If this is limited to written SF, whathell, it was an
"instant book."] [Of course, if you start including STrek, you're stuck with
V'ger, so maybe we should forget the whole thing.]
It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire
or ice -- there are two other possibilities: one is
paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. When you compute
the length of time between THE EVENT and THE NOSTALGIA
FOR THE EVENT, the span seems to be about A YEAR LESS IN
EACH CYCLE. Eventually within the next quarter of a
century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together
that people will not be able to take a step without
being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that
point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia.
-- Frank Zappa
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
STEFAN M. THIEME
structure 99.9% of all Americans would recognize; that trench-riddled planet
destroying mobile space station known as the DEATH STAR!
(Who, me a Star Wars fan? Never!)
Also, though it may not be planet sized (or larger) at least at its origin,
that asteroid & tube-thingie (now what was it called?) in _Eon_ (by Greg Bear?)
seems to qualify. After all, it snaked all through the universe.
And let us not forget Earth, and Earth II, which Douglas Adams tells us
(in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series) are great super computers
(with lousy math) made by extra-dimensional mice.
Finally, a childhood favorite which I reread over the holiday break, Joan D.
Vinges _Catspaw_ begins and end at the planet Monument, built by long extinct
aliens for a purpose unknown to man.
-I would put my name here, but I forgot it.
coz...@garnet.berkeley.edu
Summertide/Divergence/whatever-the-third-one-is been mentioned on this
thread yet?
Dorothy J. Heydt
UC Berkeley
coz...@garnet.berkeley.edu
Disclaimer: UCB and the Cozzarelli lab are not responsible for my
opinions, and in fact I don't think they know I have any.
David Gutierrez
(STEFAN M. THIEME) writes:
>And let us not forget Earth, and Earth II, which Douglas Adams tells us
>(in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series) are great super computers
>(with lousy math) made by extra-dimensional mice.
That reminds me: In "Watchers of the Dark", Lloyd Biggle also had a planet that
was a computer.
David Gutierrez
d...@biomath.mda.uth.tmc.edu
"Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard
Philipp Keller
enormous big things in them.
Some I remember are:
Stephen Baxter: Timelike Infinity
(Galactic Engineering, Artificial Quasars and many more)
Donald Moffitt: In all his books are Megastructures
The Jupiter Theft
(An enormous star ship which uses whole moons as fuel)
Genesis Quest and Second Genesis
(Giant solar collectors all around a star to power
a beacon)
A Gathering of Stars and Crescent in the Sky
(An engineered solar system)
Phillip Jennings: Tower to Sky
(A space elevator)
A.C. Clarke Fountains to the Sky
(also a space elevator)
Jeffrey A. Carver From a Changling Star
(A space Station in a star used to construct
a gateway to another star)
Roger MacBride Allan The Ring of Charon
(Many Megastructures, an particle accelerator around
a moon, artifical solar systems ...)
Thomas McDonough Architects of Hyperspace
(A space Station around a neutron star)
Charles Sheffield The Web between the Worlds
(a space elevator again)
Summertide ,Divergence and Transcendence
(space elevators and much more and especially nice
a region of space with altered physical laws)
Robert L. Forward Starquake
(a space fountain)
and his non fiction book 'Future Magic' has many
proposals for giant things in it
Greg Bear Eon, Eternity
(An infinitly big space station)
Blood Music
(Although the intelligent bacteria are very small,
they themselve engage in quite a bit of planetar
engineering)
Philipp Keller
pke...@sam.math.ethz.ch
Sea Wasp
Brian Daley: Fall of the White Ship Avatar: an entire solar system
was built by the Precursors, apparently as a showpiece...
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Dave Isaacs
>A.C. Clarke Fountains to the Sky
> (also a space elevator)
I think that's Fountains of Paradise
and also from A.C.C
Against the Fall of Night/City and the Stars
(an small star cluster, among many other things)
Jupiter V
(Jupiter V itself (now called Amalthea, or
something like that))
Dan Simmons Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion
(Times Tombs and Labyrinths)
--
__________________________________________________________________________
____ ____ __ David Paul Isaacs ________________________________________
_____ _____ __ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering ________
_____ ____ __ Carleton University ________________________________________
____ __ __ Ottawa, Ontario ___________________________________________
_________________dis...@ccs.carleton.ca __________________________________
Guy Middleton
place in an artificial pocket universe, several light-years (I think)
in diameter.
-Guy Middleton, University of Waterloo gamid...@math.waterloo.edu
(+1 519 885 1211 x3472) gamid...@math.uwaterloo.ca
Steve Mowbray
>also Banks' _The Player Of Games_ and _The Use Of Weapons_ feature the
>usual orbitals and General Systems Vehicles. And hopefully, the forth-
>coming _Against A Dark Background_ will, too.
Probably not, since it's not a Culture book.
---
Steve Mowbray, Physics Department, University of Manchester, U.K.
- Janet: s...@uk.ac.man.ph.g2 / Internet: s...@g2.ph.man.ac.uk -
- "I have always known that cork is a funny thing" - The Carrot -
John Stoffel
Guy> There's also _Golden Sunlands_, by Christopher Rowley, which takes
Guy> place in an artificial pocket universe, several light-years (I think)
Guy> in diameter.
I think it was more like 10-20 light years in diameter, but I'd have
to check.
He's also got some nice big things in other books:
The War for Eternity: "The Knuckle of Delight" Planet engineering
The Star Hammer: Various space habitats, 1 Million+ pop.
20+ Mile Diameter Space ship.
John
--
Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental attitudes!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jo...@wpi.wpi.edu | Work Station Specialist | Worcester Polytechnic Institute
John Stoffel | 508-831-5512 (work) | Worcester, MA 01609
Mark Alan Lang
In _Earth_ by David Brin, the earth becomes an AI computer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mark Lang | ml...@andrew.cmu.edu |
| elis...@cmu.edu | eli...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
D J Ford
Dont forget Hectar, the once sattalite sized computer
which was crippled, but not destroyed, when it was
smashed into a dust cloud around the planet Krikit.
Dave Ford.
--
_________________________________________________
| // /||\/| | / ` /| || Dave Ford. |
|\X/ /^|| | | \_7/^| ||py1...@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk |
-------------------------------------------------
Ross Smith
>Have the huge collection of huge unexplained things in Charles Sheffield's
>Summertide/Divergence/whatever-the-third-one-is been mentioned on this
>thread yet?
A couple of people have; I didn't put them on my list because I haven't
read them myself (I would if I'd ever seen them, but US books reach us here
very slowly if at all).
Christopher Lee Cavender
Has two dyson spheres and one barrier that is more massive than the
plaent it surronds.
Chris
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is Love? - Me | "Repent Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman |
Love is Truth! - Plato |------------------------------------------|
What is Truth? - Pontus Pilate | "More Light! More Light!" Anthony Hecht |
Matthew P Wiener
Vinge A FIRE UPON THE DEEP may or may not be artificial.
Jonathan M Lennox
> comparable in size to a planet or larger. I'm including things like orbital
> towers as well as larger objects like ringworlds.)
This depends on your definition of "structure," but Vernor Vinge's A
FIRE UPON THE DEEP has the interstellar equivalent of Usenet, and
(semi-spoiler)
The Zones of Thought themselves are apparently (though it's not
entirely clear) artificial themselves. Neither of these, though, is
really a "structure" in a traditional sense, though.
--
Jonathan Lennox
jm...@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu