时间漩涡 (2011)

《时间漩涡》是一部科幻小说。作者是罗伯特·查尔斯·威尔森，于2011年出版，是时间三部曲的最终回。

剧情概要

时间回旋后四十年，政府为了收容流浪者，设立了国家照顾的机关。珊卓是国家照顾的心理学家，一天，一名叫柏斯的警官将流浪男子奥林带给珊卓，并希望珊卓能阅读奥林的笔记。奥林的笔记抽述了被时间拱门困了一万年的特克和艾萨克的事情，他们被当时的人利用去寻找假想智慧生物，殊不知所谓的假想智慧生物根本不是生物，而是一种负责发掘资源的先进机器，最终假想智慧生物分解了当时的人，艾萨克在临终前融合予假想智慧生物中，利用假想智慧生物操纵时间的能力，影响了一万年前的奥林，以阻止当时的特克纵火，然后逃到赤道洲，继而发生时间轴中的事情。

Vortex is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer Robert Charles Wilson, published in July 2011. It is the third book in the Spin series, following the Hugo Award-winning Spin and Axis.

Plot summary

Vortex tells the story of Turk Findley, the protagonist introduced in Axis, who is transported ten thousand years into the future by the mysterious entities called "the Hypotheticals." In this future humanity exists on a chain of planets connected by Hypothetical gateways; but Earth itself is a dying world, effectively quarantined.

Turk and his young friend Isaac Dvali are taken up by a community of fanatics who use them to enable a passage to the dying Earth, where they believe a prophecy of human/Hypothetical contact will be fulfilled. The prophecy is only partly true, however, and Turk must unravel the truth about the nature and purpose of the Hypotheticals before they carry him on a journey through warped time to the end of the universe itself.

Timeline

The chapters of the book alternate between two timelines: one approximately 40 years following the events of Spin and the other approximately 10,000 years following the events of Axis.

Reception

Reviewer David Mead writes that readers will be very pleased with the final adventure:

Wilson provides a hopeful conclusion to a narrative that foresees the death of all life on Earth, first as a result of global climate change and then of the destructive expansion of the dying sun when the Hypotheticals remove the barrier that has protected the planet. In each of the novels of the trilogy, the wondrous events that precipitate the story - the imposition of the barrier, the Archways, the experience of life aboard a gigantic floating archipelago that sails from Equatoria to a ruined Earth - are registered or reported by finely drawn characters.