Call number
Genres
Publication
New York: Berkley Medallion, 1976
Pages
188
Description
The epic voyage of the spacecraft Leonora Christine will take her and her fifty-strong crew to a planet some thrity light-years distant. But, because the ship will accelerate to close to the spped of light, for those on board subjective time will slow and the journey will be of only a few years¿ duration. Then a buffeting by an interstellar dustcloud changes everything. The ship¿s deceleration system is damaged irreperably and soon she is gaining velocity. When she attains light-speed, tau zero itself, the disparity between ship-time and external time becomes almost impossibly great. Eons and galaxies hurtle by, and the crew of the Leonora Christine speeds into the unknown.
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1970
Physical description
188 p.; 6.8 inches
ISBN
0425032108 / 9780425032107
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User reviews
LibraryThing member melydia
A group of scientists are in a spaceship bound for a far planet, some thirty light-years away. And while they cannot travel faster than the speed of light, the time dilation considerably shortens their trip. Due to the mechanism driving their speed, separate engines are required for deceleration.
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When these decelerators are broken after a collision with a rogue nebula, the crew find themselves accelerating faster and faster, while the time difference between them and the rest of the universe continues to grow. This is my first time reading a science fiction novel that really deals with the relativistic effects of space travel, and I found that part of it fascinating. The interactions between crew members, on the other hand, were far less interesting. I did notice, however, that when someone in a relationship was unfaithful, it was always the woman. Funny, that. But hey, if you can get past the often dated gender roles, it's a pretty decent story of survival. Show Less
LibraryThing member betula.alba
Definitely "hard sci-fi" with plentiful theoretical scientific discussions. The factor Tao refers to the relationship between the speed of which the starship travels and the speed of light. Factoring in the increased mass derived from increased speed, time (to the outside observer) seems to pass
With regards to characterizations, these seem alittle bit shallow and sometimes outdated. The latter especially when it comes to the Swedes (Lindgren finding solace in singing Bellman etc). It is apparent that Poul Anderson has a fondness of his Scandinavian heritage, making Sweden the peacekeeper nation of the world, and the organizers of the mission (being Swedish myself, I found this particularly amusing). The first two thirds of the book were somewhat slow and tedious, and then (as the conditions of the crew and its mission becomes more and more grave) the book speeds up and becomes alot more interesting. The strength of this novel lies however in its underlying science and idea. Great scope.
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slower on the ship than elsewhere. As the speed of Leonora Christine increases (and Tao -> 0), seconds aboard the ship equals years on earth. This is the world the passengers of the Leonora Christine live in, and the basis for almost everything that happens on their voyage. With regards to characterizations, these seem alittle bit shallow and sometimes outdated. The latter especially when it comes to the Swedes (Lindgren finding solace in singing Bellman etc). It is apparent that Poul Anderson has a fondness of his Scandinavian heritage, making Sweden the peacekeeper nation of the world, and the organizers of the mission (being Swedish myself, I found this particularly amusing). The first two thirds of the book were somewhat slow and tedious, and then (as the conditions of the crew and its mission becomes more and more grave) the book speeds up and becomes alot more interesting. The strength of this novel lies however in its underlying science and idea. Great scope.
Show Less
LibraryThing member raycun
Hard SF of the old school. Nearly-as-fast-as-light spaceship is damaged and unable to slow down, so must keep accelerating, which is an interesting hook for discussing the effects of those speeds. In a sign of its times, the novel is as much concerned with the effect on the crew, who are a mixed
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and fragile bunch and not all emotionless scientists. Unfortunately the female characters, although theoretically equally skilled specialists, are only important in the novel for who they sleep with. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
“Consider: a single light-year is an inconceivable abyss. Denumerable but inconceivable. At an ordinary speed – say, a reasonable pace for a car in megalopolitan traffic, two kilometers per minute – you would consume almost nine million years in crossing it. And in Sol’s neighborhood, the
In “Tau Zero” by Poul Anderson.
Yeah I'm aware of the twin paradox and how Special Relativity alone doesn't account for the returning twin being younger; at the time I remember wondering specifically whether one of the main criticism of Tau zero (i.e. that the crew of the ship should observe the universe as being slower relative to them while they're accelerating, not sped up as it is in the book) was on the nose. Not that most people think that special relativity is simple, but in fact it is even trickier than is apparent the first time you meet it. The crucial point to remember is that what you actually see is very different from what is happening "in the observer's frame of reference" as the jargon has it, because you have to allow for the time that light takes to get to you, which adds a whole extra layer of distortions they don't tell you about in your first relativity course. If you take that into account, special relativity has no problem completely accounting for the twin paradox, for instance. In fact in Tau Zero the speed of light is still an uncrossable barrier - as it would be; the point is the effects of time dilation, and as the drive keeps working and the momentum increases, so the dilation effect increases. Since he was trying to discuss the physics, might help to get that bit right. Most "paradoxes" in Special Relativity can be resolved by just doing the Lorentz transformations. The implications of SF time travel are different. Time Travel in a deterministic universe (Terminator 1). People have a lot of problems with this, partly because they assume everything started out in a timeline without time travel. If it is a deterministic universe, the time traveler was always going to travel back in time and his actions were always going to happen. This imposed self-consistency would exclude a large numbers of possible timelines and require very specific actions, but it's not all that strange. Time travel in a not self-consistent universe (Terminator 2 or back to the future). Yep. Quite straightforward. Time travel in a seemingly self-consistent universe that might not really be- See many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Add time travel.
Think about it for a while. Fun.
What bothered me at the time was not the twin paradox though; what bugged me was the pushing the spaceship to light speed. Besides the fact that it would take infinite energy to push mass "at" the speed of light, let alone surpass it, which Einstein proved is impossible; if you reached it, for an observer your time would stop and for you, your time, distance to everything would be zero, you would see the whole future life of the universe unfold instantaneously.
But SF does not have eyes to see, eyes lacking elsewhere; the insights come from physics, and the writers can have no more insight than that. In general, they have less. So, despite a final paragraph obviously written more with an eye for an ending than with an eye on content, it is no good looking to SF to tell you what the Universe is up to; much of it is sub-O level, much of it fantasy, not SF and the remainder is both hard to find and usually badly written (very few people who spend years studying math and physics turn out to be good writers - it has been known, but it is rare).
Perhaps the larger point is that looking at others to explain things for you is a weak idea (in fact doomed); better to learn and understand for yourself.
When SF authors develop the courage to stop recycling their Sunday school primers, perhaps the genre will prove the Jesuits wrong: "give me a child until the age of seven, and I will show you the man!"
SF = Speculative Fiction.
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stars averaged some nine light-years part. Beta Virginis was thirty-two distant. Nevertheless, such spaces could be conquered.”In “Tau Zero” by Poul Anderson.
Yeah I'm aware of the twin paradox and how Special Relativity alone doesn't account for the returning twin being younger; at the time I remember wondering specifically whether one of the main criticism of Tau zero (i.e. that the crew of the ship should observe the universe as being slower relative to them while they're accelerating, not sped up as it is in the book) was on the nose. Not that most people think that special relativity is simple, but in fact it is even trickier than is apparent the first time you meet it. The crucial point to remember is that what you actually see is very different from what is happening "in the observer's frame of reference" as the jargon has it, because you have to allow for the time that light takes to get to you, which adds a whole extra layer of distortions they don't tell you about in your first relativity course. If you take that into account, special relativity has no problem completely accounting for the twin paradox, for instance. In fact in Tau Zero the speed of light is still an uncrossable barrier - as it would be; the point is the effects of time dilation, and as the drive keeps working and the momentum increases, so the dilation effect increases. Since he was trying to discuss the physics, might help to get that bit right. Most "paradoxes" in Special Relativity can be resolved by just doing the Lorentz transformations. The implications of SF time travel are different. Time Travel in a deterministic universe (Terminator 1). People have a lot of problems with this, partly because they assume everything started out in a timeline without time travel. If it is a deterministic universe, the time traveler was always going to travel back in time and his actions were always going to happen. This imposed self-consistency would exclude a large numbers of possible timelines and require very specific actions, but it's not all that strange. Time travel in a not self-consistent universe (Terminator 2 or back to the future). Yep. Quite straightforward. Time travel in a seemingly self-consistent universe that might not really be- See many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Add time travel.
Think about it for a while. Fun.
What bothered me at the time was not the twin paradox though; what bugged me was the pushing the spaceship to light speed. Besides the fact that it would take infinite energy to push mass "at" the speed of light, let alone surpass it, which Einstein proved is impossible; if you reached it, for an observer your time would stop and for you, your time, distance to everything would be zero, you would see the whole future life of the universe unfold instantaneously.
But SF does not have eyes to see, eyes lacking elsewhere; the insights come from physics, and the writers can have no more insight than that. In general, they have less. So, despite a final paragraph obviously written more with an eye for an ending than with an eye on content, it is no good looking to SF to tell you what the Universe is up to; much of it is sub-O level, much of it fantasy, not SF and the remainder is both hard to find and usually badly written (very few people who spend years studying math and physics turn out to be good writers - it has been known, but it is rare).
Perhaps the larger point is that looking at others to explain things for you is a weak idea (in fact doomed); better to learn and understand for yourself.
When SF authors develop the courage to stop recycling their Sunday school primers, perhaps the genre will prove the Jesuits wrong: "give me a child until the age of seven, and I will show you the man!"
SF = Speculative Fiction.
Show Less
LibraryThing member salimbol
A great premise - an ever-accelerating starship ricocheting around the galaxy, with its crew watching as everything they have ever known vanishes in the blur of time around them- mixing hard science with a thoughtful examination of the crew's psyches. Sure, there's a certain stodginess of
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presentation, and the author's attempts to write rounded characters don't always work (particularly with his female characters, though there's much to admire on that front as well), but it's an intelligent and interesting book nevertheless. Show Less
LibraryThing member tuusannuuska
2,4 stars
Not my favorite book ever. The concept was great, and the themes handled were interesting, but the writing was mechanical and unimaginative. The characters didn't seem real, and especially their relationships felt very artificial (considering how much of a focus they seemed to be in the
Also, while I recognize that this was written in 1970 and is as such a product of it's times, the misogyny is pretty glaring. I think I'd rather have had this story with an all male cast, than with the women only as either promiscuous charlatans, emotional crutches for the men, or hysterical wish-to-be mothers. Everything was viewed through a male lens, and I'm pretty sure the author had never been friends with an actual woman in his lifetime.
Not my favorite book ever. The concept was great, and the themes handled were interesting, but the writing was mechanical and unimaginative. The characters didn't seem real, and especially their relationships felt very artificial (considering how much of a focus they seemed to be in the
Show More
book). This is a case where I can appreciate what the author was going for, while being dissatisfied with the execution.Also, while I recognize that this was written in 1970 and is as such a product of it's times, the misogyny is pretty glaring. I think I'd rather have had this story with an all male cast, than with the women only as either promiscuous charlatans, emotional crutches for the men, or hysterical wish-to-be mothers. Everything was viewed through a male lens, and I'm pretty sure the author had never been friends with an actual woman in his lifetime.
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LibraryThing member zangasta
A group of people discover that the only way of getting out of a tough spot is to struggle their way into an even tougher position. And tougher, and...
LibraryThing member www.snigel.nu
A tale about a spacecraft crew on a voyage with no return ticket. I liked it a lot.
LibraryThing member geertwissink
A great story about the psychological effects of time-traveling towards a future where nobody of nothing from the present can exist. Anderson combines scientific details about crossing the space-time continuum with a analysis of the lives of those aboard the ship. I started reading this after
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reading a mention of it in the foreword of one of Vernor Vinge's books. Trivia: Anderson talks of ramjets where Vernor VInge, one of his followers, talks of ramscoop drives in a Fire upon the Deep and The Deepness in the Sky. Show Less
LibraryThing member sf_addict
Well this is my kind of SF! Sure there are one or two head-scratching moments but you can let them ride over your head and enjoy what is essentially a human story; it sounds like a corny back-of-the-book blurb but it is a story of a voyage, a journey across time and space, a story of teamwork and
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the rewards it brings. But also it is, as a fellow Goodreads contributor, mindblowing! Huge conceptually yet it makes for compelling reading. Definitely a keeper and the kind of book to get you back into SF if you've been away from it! Show Less
LibraryThing member SwampIrish
At about the 20% mark in this book I started dreaming of all the ways that I would hack it up in my review. The whole thing was about "We're going into space, who you hooking up with?" After the event that the plot is centered on, however, things start to change in the narrative. There was still
At this point it was like rolling the score on some Atari 2600 video game (some old school gamers may get that). Every time you put a limit on how far the author is willing to push it, he goes even further to the point that it is mind blowing. As a previous reviewer said, this one will be with me for a long time. In the end I would call it "Hooking up on a space ride to nowhere".
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plenty of "hooking up" and absolutely poor characterization but the narrative starts to really focus on time as it relates to near light speed space travel.At this point it was like rolling the score on some Atari 2600 video game (some old school gamers may get that). Every time you put a limit on how far the author is willing to push it, he goes even further to the point that it is mind blowing. As a previous reviewer said, this one will be with me for a long time. In the end I would call it "Hooking up on a space ride to nowhere".
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The epic voyage of the spacecraft Leonora Christine will take her and her fifty-strong crew to a planet some thrity light-years distant. But, because the ship will accelerate to close to the spped of light, for those on board subjective time will slow and the journey will be of only a few years'
Show More
duration. Then a buffeting by an interstellar dustcloud changes everything. The ship's deceleration system is damaged irreperably and soon she is gaining velocity. When she attains light-speed, tau zero itself, the disparity between ship-time and external time becomes almost impossibly great. Eons and galaxies hurtle by, and the crew of the Leonora Christine speeds into the unknown. Show Less
LibraryThing member arning
A space-ship designed to colonize a distant planet is made accelerate to incredible speeds. It's deceleration mechanism get's knocked out, making the ship go faster and faster and cannot stop.
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Off into the wild open space of the unknown to look for a possibly habitable planet. Part "hard" sci-fi, part space opera, but mostly hard sci-fi – the book is a bit too hard for me to give it three stars. However, because the humanity shines through I'll cave.
LibraryThing member br77rino
Decent sci-fi involving a ship testing the limits of time by utilizing the special theory of invariance.
LibraryThing member fpagan
If you keep accelerating your ram-fusion starship, even though you can never quite reach the speed of light, the time-dilation factor is such that you can eventually pass through whole galaxies in seconds, shipboard time, and maybe witness the entire future of the universe. I had never read this
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cracking novel before, but was pointed to it by Gilster's book on interstellar travel. Show Less
LibraryThing member brakketh
Amazingly creative 'hard' science fiction. A spaceship experiences mechanical difficulties with its breaking mechanism and is forced to use relativistic effects of time to accelerate and brake at a new world. I don't know anywhere near enough physics to evaluate those aspects of the story but I
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thoroughly enjoyed this classic of science fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member ScoLgo
This is my first Poul Anderson book. My expectations might have been too high as I found it to be rather disappointing. The concept is pretty cool but the character development is lacking and portions of the dialogue were very poorly executed. I did feel that Anderson managed a great job of
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thinking through the hard science aspects of his story. It's a shame that that was the most interesting part of the book as there were several lengthy explanations of things like time-dilation, ship acceleration, the titular 'Tau' factor, etc, that made my eyes absolutely glaze over at times. Show Less
LibraryThing member AmishTechie
This book was one of the first Sc-Fi books I ever read. Had a lasting effect! A classic of the "hard-science" theme.
LibraryThing member kevn57
What starts as a fairly common tale of Interplanetary colonization, turns into something much more, Poul Anderson is one of my favorite authors and he really comes through here with a strong story.
reread 3.5 starsIt's the most unusual of space flight stories, a way to survive the death of the
reread 3.5 stars
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universe and the next big bang. I'm pretty sure in 1969 it was unclear if after expansion the universe would contract back in for another cycle. But now we know that the universe is expanding and will never contract, that the death of the universe is the final heat death. Show Less
LibraryThing member krazykiwi
Took a while to get into, the characters are a little dry, but it improved. Unlike many examples of hard sci-fi, I found the sciency parts more approachable and readable than the characterizations. There are some truly lovely passages describing the ship's journey, and how it would appear from both
The frequent references to Sweden as a great power were hugely fun, as were the occasional historical and literary references. The idea of sending unrelated people into space, rather than the more common trope of already established couples and/or families, was a different turn and one that I quite enjoyed, it certainly provided some of the tension on board the ship - yet, even in a near future, I don't think people would be quite so civilized about the results (not even the ever pragmatic swedes!) Nor, I think, would people be so calm about the situation they find themselves in.
Worth reading, overall, and I'm glad I did. But it didn't leap onto my list of all time favourites nor is it anything I'll probably read again anytime soon.
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inside and outside.The frequent references to Sweden as a great power were hugely fun, as were the occasional historical and literary references. The idea of sending unrelated people into space, rather than the more common trope of already established couples and/or families, was a different turn and one that I quite enjoyed, it certainly provided some of the tension on board the ship - yet, even in a near future, I don't think people would be quite so civilized about the results (not even the ever pragmatic swedes!) Nor, I think, would people be so calm about the situation they find themselves in.
Worth reading, overall, and I'm glad I did. But it didn't leap onto my list of all time favourites nor is it anything I'll probably read again anytime soon.
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LibraryThing member kslade
Really good sci-fi novel about time warps, etc.