--- product_id: 9092330 title: "Spin" brand: "robert charles wilson" price: "£10.29" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 8 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/9092330-spin store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # Spin **Brand:** robert charles wilson **Price:** £10.29 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Spin by robert charles wilson - **How much does it cost?** £10.29 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/9092330-spin) ## Best For - robert charles wilson enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted robert charles wilson brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Spin ## Images ![Spin - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Cek6j+LzL.jpg) ![Spin - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51b8d5dZLpL.jpg) ![Spin - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31btar4hWjL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Brainy and Character-Driven Sci-Fi Classic *by B***R on Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2013* THIS REVIEW CONTAINS NO SPOILERS!This book not only enthralled me in every sense of the word, but it also made me a Robert Charles Wilson fan."Spin" is the kind of sci-fi I love: one that gives you both hard science and strong characterization. I found it a pleasure to read--the work of a complete writer who doesn't appear to like to sacrifice either element. AND it won Wilson the 2006 Hugo for Best Novel.All great novels start with a good premise; and all good sci-fi starts with a great proposition--in this case: what if, one night, all the stars in the sky just disappeared? It's not one that can be answered easily: our orbiting craft return looking as if they had been orbiting for much past their real lifetimes. And, as time goes on, the stars, the moon, and sun slowly emerge again, but in time it becomes clear that what we see is only a representation of those bodies...something like a projection, as if they were night lights.When we do find out SOME of the truth--that our new sky is in reality a "caul" of sorts, surrounding us, for our protection, and that the universe beyond the caul is traveling millions of times more quickly than here on our planet--we are really only learning some of the truth. WHY this is happening is not going to be answered for quite some time.It is here that the characters become important, and it is to Robert Charles Wilson's credit that his cast of characters is not immense; instead, those characters of interest include, primarily: Tyler Dupree, our narrator, who begins the novel as a young boy and ends it as a doctor; and his next door neighbors, the Lawton family--chiefly, E.D. (the brilliant scientific tycoon whose friendship with Tyler's father still ties their families together) and his children, Jason (a brilliant young man whose conflicted path will follow his father's) and Diane (Jason's twin sister, whose lack of faith fills her life with fear, false icons, and promiscuity).While it is true that this novel's attention to characterization slows the action a bit, it's a critical sacrifice: each of these people drives and informs the plot of the novel. While our narrator is necessarily separated from the Lawton household, he is still close enough to learn key details ahead of the world at large.The novel is told in a kind of bifurcated manner: while most of the chapters follow a linear story line--their time span covering something like a decade--other chapters take place at some unclear time in the future. This manner of storytelling is popular, I know, but I often think it is more of a short cut. I know it's done to build suspense, but its interruptive manner sometimes divides attention and diminishes itself or the other story line.But the long and the short of it is that I enjoyed this book immensely: I felt the science aspect of it was occasionally stunning--especially when we learn the truth behind the caul, and then come up with a way to use it to create life on Mars. INTELLIGENT life--what an absolutely brilliant concept, and how cleverly conceived! This aspect was strongest for me, and has stayed with me the longest.As for the characterization, I felt it was intelligently done, though maybe it went on a bit long. I won't say it dragged, as I found the part concerning Jason was pivotal and exciting. Diane's portion was the problem, and it had only a little to do with the fact that it did not propagate any of the sciences. It was more that her role was weepy and weak and dependent upon others. I get that her role was to be the one who was conflicted by her relationship with her father (as was Jason, surely) but, more simply put:She was just not that interesting.I understand why her role is pivotal to the novel. Diane is not only Tyler's love interest...I believe she is also a metaphor for much of mankind. That is, I believe she represents much of earth's population: those disaffected with and conflicted by our technological and scientific advancements. For millennia--but particularly often now--man has been making leaps that make divides humans into two camps: those who believe such leaps are good for the race, and those who believe such leaps represent man's assumption of the role of God.So Diane's conflict makes sense--her turning to cults and (pseudo) religion and even sexuality represents her inability to accept this next leap, and her troubled path echoes a society that questions its new role upon Earth and, soon, within the universe at large.Additionally, Diane does get more appealing in the "out-of-sequence" chapters, chapters that advance their life after the events of the other part of the story. Here her compassion and guile and inner strength come more to the fore...until this point, frankly, it wasn't just that I couldn't figure out what Tyler saw in her. It was that in the beginning of the book she was described as a person "whose IQ was nearly as impressive as Jason's." Other than her angst I saw no reason to believe such a claim.I really enjoyed "Spin" for its involved, clever, complex story as well as its exhilarating ideas. Granted, stories like Wilson's require a lot of exposition, but I found the reading gratifying. Read this novel if you're interested in big ideas and enjoy strong characterization and an involved storyline.And if you enjoy it you'll be happy to know that it was followed by its sequel,  Axis , and then followed again by  Vortex . ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Best. Science Fiction. Novel. Ever. (or at least in top five) *by T***N on Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2007* _Spin_ by Robert Charles Wilson is the best. Science fiction novel. Ever. Yes, I mean that. I would put it up against _Dune_ , _A Fire Upon the Deep_, and _Ender's Game_, it is that unbelievably good. Or if it is not the best one ever, it definitely belongs in the top five. Bold words I know and I run the risk of overselling the book but this novel is what other science fiction novelists should aspire to create. It has everything. The basic premise - no spoilers here, you can get this from the back cover of the book - is that one October night the three main characters, three adolescents, Diane and Jason Lawton (fraternal twins) and their best friend Tyler Dupree are out on the lawn stargazing when the Moon and stars disappear, the sky become a flat black. Rushing inside, they learn that all satellite communications have been lost and the world is in a panic. News from the other side of the world is hard to come by, and the three wait with trepidation to see if the Sun will even rise in the morning. It does, but it is a strange sun, an almost generic Sun, a perfect one without evidence of solar flares, prominences, or sunspots. An idealization of a Sun. It becomes clear to the government, military, and scientists that a planet-spanning shield, a membrane, has been erected around the globe, completely blocking sight of the stars and Moon from the people of the Earth. The Sun that that people see, that is still driving the world's weather, ecology, and agriculture, is a simulacrum; for all intents and purposes, the real Sun but upon study obviously not an actual star. It gets stranger though. The Spin membrane (the event comes to be called the Spin) has two highly unusual properties. One, it has produced a huge time discontinuity; for every second that passes on Earth, something like 3 years passes outside the membrane. Two, the membrane is selectively permeable. As obviously the Earth would be fried if 3 years of sunlight hit the planet every second, the "Sun" is a filtered representation of actual sunlight. Similarly, the planet is protected from similar accumulations of cosmic radiation. However, the membrane is permeable to manmade items, both coming and going. This is in fact how the unique temporal properties of the membrane were discovered, as survivors of the International Space Station fell to earth the first night of the Spin but claimed that they had been orbiting a frightening, black, blank world for three weeks! At first kept secret, this does eventually get out to the public. The novel follows the next 30-odd years of history after the creation of the Spin membrane through the eyes of the three main characters. Each tackles the brave new era in his or her own way, each in ways that thoroughly flesh out the character, are true to the characters personalities and desires, and illuminate different aspects of the Spin Earth. Jason devotes his life to unraveling the mysteries of the Spin, trying to understand who did, what it means, and how to defeat it. Diane instead embraces religion, joining a different segment of the population who is trying to come to terms with the event through spiritual means. Tyler is in some sense the outsider, the unattached one, in the outside looking in as a child and still as an adult. He becomes a physician and travels between the two worlds, Diane's and Jason's. The novel is also a love story, as Tyler nourishes strong unrequited love for Diane, who herself has strongly conflicted feelings for him in turn. As events in the Spin unfold, Diane and Tyler almost connect again and again but events in their personal lives - irrevocably tied up in the Spin - keep them apart. It is an also an end of the world story. As 30-odd years pass on Earth, 300 billion years pass outside the Spin membrane. During that time the Sun has swollen and would be lethal to life on Earth if the membrane were to disappear. Instead of the Spin being seen as a prison, it instead becomes the only thing keeping humanity alive. But for how long? Will the membrane disappear, the Earth left to the blazing and merciless fury of a senescent Sun, the oceans boiling away, all life turned to cinders and ash? Or is something else in store? Humanity - and the main characters - struggle with the issue. The novel continually adds surprises, with developments in the characters personal lives, how the world reacts to the Spin, and the absolutely fascinating and exciting things that are done to study and fight against the Spin, wonderful things that have you exited as you read them, going to yourself, "wow, I never thought of that." So many things happen, things I would love to tell you about, but I won't. Get the book and read it. Now. This is epic science fiction. This has fantastic writing. This has incredibly well-done characters. And it has a mind-blowing ending. Oh, and a sequel, _Axis_, due out in September, which I plan to get. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Truly original *by A***R on Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2022* Not without it's flaws, but well worth a read. There is actually very little Original SF being written any more. Almost all SF works with long established tropes: exploring the solar system; exploring the galaxy (with various work-arounds for the speed of light limit), meeting / fighting / allying with alien species / cultures; robots & androids, apocalypses from nuclear / biological / outer space causes; post-apocalypse struggles, etc, etc. That's not to say there isn't a lot of very good, very creative SF being written, but almost all of it falls within these traditional themes. Spin doesn't. Oh, it touches on the threat of apocalypse, and there are aliens of sort, although we never really meet them, and of course there's a little bit of space travel, but the theme of the novel doesn't fall into any of the genres I listed above, nor have I encountered a major theme like it before. For that reason alone it's well worth reading.Nonetheless, to be completely honest: the three major characters are well fleshed out. Some of the others, even ones who are very important to the story, and kind of two-dimensional. At times the story drags, with too much long winded detail that is far from essential to the story line. And much of the story set in Sumatra seems intended to show off Wilson's knowledge of the culture, rather than add to the story.But those are pretty minor complaints compared to the positives. Reward originality and creativity. But it and read it. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/9092330-spin](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/9092330-spin) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-16*