I Read Books: Beyond Infinity

 

Beyond Infinity

Arthur C Clarke wrote a story Against The Fall Of Night which he later rewrote and expanded, changing it significantly into a novel called The City And The Stars. Gregory Benford later wrote a sequel to Against The Fall Of Night (but not The City And The Stars) called Beyond The Fall Of Night. Then he too made significant changes, and expansions, to write this, Beyond Infinity.

Cley is born a billion years in the future, an Original, a baseline human (though as it turns out she has knowledge inboard, in her bone marrow, and her fingers can transform into tools). She’s fascinated by Supras, the last and most advanced humans, who until recently were in two isolated cities on an old dry earth. Now they are releasing the water, letting life grow. Amongst them are various other forms of humans, such as Cley’s Meta (group/family/clan) of Originals. She’s mothered by various members of the Meta; her father left apparently. They tend the new forests, and also the Library Of Life.

Then there is an attack that destroys her community, killing, it seems, every original but Cley. She’s discovered by Seeker After Patterns, a super-uplifted Raccoon-like creature from many millions of years after original human time. Together they find their way back to where the Supras are trying to recover the Library Of Life, also attacked. From there she learns more about the history of the universe, and humanity, and how higher dimensional creatures were created, and how some of them want to destroy, or maybe change the universe. And the key may be Cley, as some elements will only respond to Natural, Original creatures.

She goes on a something of a tour, sometimes to discover very weird things, sometimes to be lectured at obliquely by people and creatures who either think she can’t understand, or are alien enough to have difficulty communicating. Long, discursive, full of ideas of varying interest.

Read This: Some old school far future evolution into godlike power science fiction from the point of view of a (almost) Original Human
Don’t Read This: Cley doesn’t do much, just wonders round and see things, like an even older school science fiction, Jules Verne stuff