Author(s): Marina J. Lostetter

Science Fiction

With nods to Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series, the real science of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, a touch of Hugh Howey's Wool, this is a powerful tale of space travel, adventure, discovery, and humanity. In 2088 humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth's solar system, and astrophysicist Reggie Straifer, knows where we should go. He's discovered a distant, anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics, and proposes the creation of a deep-space mission to find out whether the star is a weird natural phenomenon, or something manufactured. Convoy 7's mission to discern the nature of the star's strange qualities will use vast resources and take centuries, so in order to maintain the genetic talent of the first crew, clones are used for the expedition. But a clone is not a perfect copy, and each generation has its own quirks, desires, and neuroses. With the stars their home and the unknown their destination, the men and women of Convoy 7 are on a voyage of many lifetimes, and as the centuries pass, their society changes and evolves, but their mission remains the same: to reach Reggie's mysterious star and explore its origins - and implications. A mosaic novel of discovery, Noumenon successfully examines aspects of the human condition with a touch that is both thrilling and poignant.