We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Learning The World

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781841493442

Price: £12.99

ON SALE: 4th May 2006

Genre: Fiction & Related Items

Select a format:

ebook

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

‘Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.’ – School Library Journal

‘Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.’ – THE TIMES

The great sunliner ‘But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!’ is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate.

On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio, petroleum and powered flight, a young astronomer searching for distant planets detects an anomaly that he presumes must be a comet. His friend, a brilliant foreign physicist, calculates the orbit, only to discover an anomaly of his own.

The comet is slowing down …

Reminding us that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine, LEARNING THE WORLD is a stunning novel of exploration, discovery and Mankind’s destiny amongst the stars.

Books by Ken MacLeod:

Fall Revolution
The Star Fraction
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road

Engines of Light
Cosmonaut Keep
Dark Light
Engine City

Corporation Wars Trilogy
Dissidence
Insurgence
Emergence

Novels
The Human Front
Newton’s Wake
Learning the World
The Execution Channel
The Restoration Game
Intrusion
Descent

What's Inside

Read More Read Less

Reviews

MacLeod continues to dazzle readers with vividly rendered landscapes of technological splendor and fascinating yet plausible visions of humanity's future.
BOOKLIST
Ken MacLeod outdoes himself with Learning the World. . . don't miss this one
ANALOG
Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.
THE TIMES
As always with this deeply political writer, the book is chock-full of well-done extrapolation concerning the political and economic workings of his various societies. This is contemporary SF at its best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
A beautiful piece of stylish writing. . . Gripping and convincing
STARBURST
A charismatic, inventive story of space travel and discovery
SFX