A World Out of Time
Encyclopedia
A World Out of Time is a science fiction
novel by Larry Niven
and published in 1976. It is set outside the Known Space
universe of many of Niven's stories, but is otherwise fairly representative of his 1970s hard science fiction
novels. The main part of the novel was originally serialized in Galaxy
magazine as "Children of the State"; another part was originally published as the short story "Rammer". A World Out of Time placed fifth in the annual Locus Poll in 1977.
frozen in the year 1970 in the faint hope of a future cure. His body is revived in 2190 by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called "The State
". His personality and memories are extracted (destroying his body in the process) and transferred into the body of a mindwipe
d criminal. After he is awakened, he is continually evaluated by Peerssa, a "checker", who has to decide whether he is worth keeping. With the threat of mindwiping looming over his head, Corbell works hard to pass the various tests.
Peerssa decides that Corbell is a loner and born tourist. This makes him an ideal candidate to be the pilot and sole passenger of a Bussard ramjet
, whose mission is to find and seed suitable planets as the first step to terraforming
them. Disgusted with the State's treatment of him as an expendable commodity, Corbell hijacks the ship and takes it to the centre of the galaxy
. It was at this point that the original short story ended.
Peerssa tries to talk him out of it, but fails. Peerssa and The State resort to subterfuge; an artificial intelligence
program based on Peerssa's personality is secretly transferred into the ship's computer by way of the conversations. Though the Peerssa AI opposes the detour, it cannot disobey Corbell's direct orders.
After a lengthy journey (including a close approach to the super-massive black hole
at the galactic axis), possible only due to the suspended animation
devices on board, Corbell returns to the solar system. Although only hundreds of years have passed on the ship, three million years have elapsed on Earth, due to relativistic
time dilation
. At first, he is confused and initially believes they might have come to the wrong system because it has changed considerably; the Sun has apparently evolved into a red giant
and Earth is now in orbit around a super-hot Jupiter
. Corbell and Peerssa eventually find that the solar system has been engineered into this new configuration in order to move the Earth to a habitable distance from the enlarged Sun, but this revelation only comes later in the book. Corbell puts the ship into orbit around the Earth.
The Earth's climate has changed, despite its new location in orbit around Jupiter. Among the most important changes is the increased surface temperature; the poles are temperate
, while the former temperate zones reach temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius (120+ degrees Fahrenheit). The Earth's axial tilt
is still 23.5 degrees so the poles experience 6 years of night and 6 years of day. Almost all remaining life on Earth has adapted to live in Antarctica. Elsewhere life is extinct except for some evidence of biological activity in the Himalayan mountains.
When Corbell lands (in a modified biological probe), he is captured by Mirelly-Lyra, who is also a returned star ship pilot and refugee from the past -- though from Corbell's (and Peerssa's) future. She explains that the human species has fragmented; it is dominated by a race of immortal, permanently pre-adolescent males (the Boys), who are created by advanced medical techniques. Some time in the past, they had defeated the equally immortal (though now extinct) Girls, in the ultimate war of the sexes. The Boys have enslaved the dikta, who are unmodified humans (though they have evolved somewhat), from whom they take boys to replenish their ranks.
A starship pilot, Mirelly-Lyra had initially been a captive toy of the Girls. After their downfall, she had spent her time obsessively searching in vain for the lost adult-immortality treatment, while extending her life as much as possible using her own drugs and a form of zero-time stasis with which she waited for another returning star ship and potential help. Because she could not stop the aging process entirely, she is an old crone by the time she finds Corbell. He manages to escape from her, only to be caught by the Boys, who take him to a dikta settlement. With Gording, the dikta leader, he escapes once more.
Eventually, Corbell discovers the adult-immortality treatment, albeit by accident and only realizing it after he himself has been exposed to it. He uses it to enlist Mirelly-Lyra's help, which in turn finally gives him full control of his ship's technology (the hostile Peerssa has decided that the woman is the last survivor of the State and will only obey her). The planet Uranus
has been discovered to have been maneuvered to pass by the Earth and adjust its orbit by Peerssa the AI. Corbell arranges for the Earth's distance from the super-heated Jupiter
to be adjusted by Peersa to lower the Earth's temperature without destroying the plants and animals that have adapted to the extreme conditions.
As the novel closes, he is plotting to liberate the dikta and enable them to regain control of their own destiny.
said that A World Out of Time was reminiscent in parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey
and To Your Scattered Bodies Go
. He wrote, "a wonderfully escapist adventure, this story has a minimum of character development and description, but a maximum of excitement."
Geoff Ryman
has described A World Out of Time as one of Niven's "hardest
" works, but went on to specify that many of the concepts Niven used as plot points were "disintegrated by later research".
Robert Silverberg
reviewed World unfavorably, terming it a "rambling, loose-jointed novel that seems to have assembled itself out of the handiest pieces in the heap while its author's attention was elsewhere." Richard A. Lupoff
was similarly critical, saying Niven "starts out like a Saturn V and all too soon fizzles like a Vanguard. . . . this is either a novel that begins well and then goes dreadfully wrong or a cobbling together of several novelettes the first of which is a beauty and the others of which are stinkers."
, but does appear to share the same background as two of his other novels, The Integral Trees
and The Smoke Ring, which also feature a worldwide State, "corpsicle" personality transfers, and a computer artificial intelligence personality in charge of a ramship expedition.
, whom Niven also mentions in some of his other writing.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and published in 1976. It is set outside the Known Space
Known Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of some dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by author Larry Niven. It has also in part been used as a shared universe in the Man-Kzin Wars spin-off anthologies sub-series....
universe of many of Niven's stories, but is otherwise fairly representative of his 1970s hard science fiction
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
novels. The main part of the novel was originally serialized in Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
magazine as "Children of the State"; another part was originally published as the short story "Rammer". A World Out of Time placed fifth in the annual Locus Poll in 1977.
Plot summary
Jerome Branch Corbell has incurable cancer and is cryogenicallyCryopreservation
Cryopreservation is a process where cells or whole tissues are preserved by cooling to low sub-zero temperatures, such as 77 K or −196 °C . At these low temperatures, any biological activity, including the biochemical reactions that would lead to cell death, is effectively stopped...
frozen in the year 1970 in the faint hope of a future cure. His body is revived in 2190 by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called "The State
The State (Larry Niven)
"The State" is a fictional totalitarian world government in a future history that forms the back-story of three of Larry Niven's novels: A World Out of Time , The Integral Trees , and The Smoke Ring...
". His personality and memories are extracted (destroying his body in the process) and transferred into the body of a mindwipe
Mindwipe
For the Transformers character, see Mindwipe .Mindwipe is a technique used in some science fiction scenarios, where the subject's memories and personality are erased and replaced by new memories and personality more useful to those who are carrying out the mindwiping, or to their area's...
d criminal. After he is awakened, he is continually evaluated by Peerssa, a "checker", who has to decide whether he is worth keeping. With the threat of mindwiping looming over his head, Corbell works hard to pass the various tests.
Peerssa decides that Corbell is a loner and born tourist. This makes him an ideal candidate to be the pilot and sole passenger of a Bussard ramjet
Bussard ramjet
The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books, and referred to by Carl Sagan in the television series and book Cosmos....
, whose mission is to find and seed suitable planets as the first step to terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
them. Disgusted with the State's treatment of him as an expendable commodity, Corbell hijacks the ship and takes it to the centre of the galaxy
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
. It was at this point that the original short story ended.
Peerssa tries to talk him out of it, but fails. Peerssa and The State resort to subterfuge; an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
program based on Peerssa's personality is secretly transferred into the ship's computer by way of the conversations. Though the Peerssa AI opposes the detour, it cannot disobey Corbell's direct orders.
After a lengthy journey (including a close approach to the super-massive black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
at the galactic axis), possible only due to the suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
devices on board, Corbell returns to the solar system. Although only hundreds of years have passed on the ship, three million years have elapsed on Earth, due to relativistic
Theory of relativity
The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
time dilation
Time dilation
In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an observed difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at...
. At first, he is confused and initially believes they might have come to the wrong system because it has changed considerably; the Sun has apparently evolved into a red giant
Red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower...
and Earth is now in orbit around a super-hot Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
. Corbell and Peerssa eventually find that the solar system has been engineered into this new configuration in order to move the Earth to a habitable distance from the enlarged Sun, but this revelation only comes later in the book. Corbell puts the ship into orbit around the Earth.
The Earth's climate has changed, despite its new location in orbit around Jupiter. Among the most important changes is the increased surface temperature; the poles are temperate
Temperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
, while the former temperate zones reach temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius (120+ degrees Fahrenheit). The Earth's axial tilt
Axial tilt
In astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis, and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane...
is still 23.5 degrees so the poles experience 6 years of night and 6 years of day. Almost all remaining life on Earth has adapted to live in Antarctica. Elsewhere life is extinct except for some evidence of biological activity in the Himalayan mountains.
When Corbell lands (in a modified biological probe), he is captured by Mirelly-Lyra, who is also a returned star ship pilot and refugee from the past -- though from Corbell's (and Peerssa's) future. She explains that the human species has fragmented; it is dominated by a race of immortal, permanently pre-adolescent males (the Boys), who are created by advanced medical techniques. Some time in the past, they had defeated the equally immortal (though now extinct) Girls, in the ultimate war of the sexes. The Boys have enslaved the dikta, who are unmodified humans (though they have evolved somewhat), from whom they take boys to replenish their ranks.
A starship pilot, Mirelly-Lyra had initially been a captive toy of the Girls. After their downfall, she had spent her time obsessively searching in vain for the lost adult-immortality treatment, while extending her life as much as possible using her own drugs and a form of zero-time stasis with which she waited for another returning star ship and potential help. Because she could not stop the aging process entirely, she is an old crone by the time she finds Corbell. He manages to escape from her, only to be caught by the Boys, who take him to a dikta settlement. With Gording, the dikta leader, he escapes once more.
Eventually, Corbell discovers the adult-immortality treatment, albeit by accident and only realizing it after he himself has been exposed to it. He uses it to enlist Mirelly-Lyra's help, which in turn finally gives him full control of his ship's technology (the hostile Peerssa has decided that the woman is the last survivor of the State and will only obey her). The planet Uranus
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
has been discovered to have been maneuvered to pass by the Earth and adjust its orbit by Peerssa the AI. Corbell arranges for the Earth's distance from the super-heated Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
to be adjusted by Peersa to lower the Earth's temperature without destroying the plants and animals that have adapted to the extreme conditions.
As the novel closes, he is plotting to liberate the dikta and enable them to regain control of their own destiny.
Literary significance and reception
New York Times reviewer Gerald Jonas wrote that, in a novel filled with wonders, "Niven describes everything in the toneless accents of a tour guide on a fall foliage caravan. . . . after a while, the wonders begin to blur together [and] the reader begins to yearn for less matter and more art." Jerry L. Parsons in his review for the Library JournalLibrary Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
said that A World Out of Time was reminiscent in parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film...
and To Your Scattered Bodies Go
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a science fiction novel and the first book in the Riverworld series of books by Philip José Farmer. It won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1972 at the 30th Worldcon...
. He wrote, "a wonderfully escapist adventure, this story has a minimum of character development and description, but a maximum of excitement."
Geoff Ryman
Geoff Ryman
Geoffrey Charles Ryman is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and surrealistic or "slipstream" fiction.Ryman currently lectures in Creative Writing for University of Manchester's English Department. His most recent full-length novel, The King's Last Song, is set in Cambodia, both at the time of...
has described A World Out of Time as one of Niven's "hardest
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
" works, but went on to specify that many of the concepts Niven used as plot points were "disintegrated by later research".
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
reviewed World unfavorably, terming it a "rambling, loose-jointed novel that seems to have assembled itself out of the handiest pieces in the heap while its author's attention was elsewhere." Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
was similarly critical, saying Niven "starts out like a Saturn V and all too soon fizzles like a Vanguard. . . . this is either a novel that begins well and then goes dreadfully wrong or a cobbling together of several novelettes the first of which is a beauty and the others of which are stinkers."
Awards and nominations
A World Out of Time was a nominee for the following awards:- 1977 Locus AwardLocus AwardThe Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
in the Novel category (5th Place) - 1977 Ditmar Award in the international science fiction category
Connections to other Niven works
The story does not take place in Niven's Known SpaceKnown Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of some dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by author Larry Niven. It has also in part been used as a shared universe in the Man-Kzin Wars spin-off anthologies sub-series....
, but does appear to share the same background as two of his other novels, The Integral Trees
The Integral Trees
The Integral Trees is a 1984 science fiction novel by Larry Niven . Like much of Niven's work, the story is heavily influenced by the setting: a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star...
and The Smoke Ring, which also feature a worldwide State, "corpsicle" personality transfers, and a computer artificial intelligence personality in charge of a ramship expedition.
Literary reference
The protagonist's name is a play on that of the author James Branch CabellJames Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell, ; April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when his...
, whom Niven also mentions in some of his other writing.
External links
- A World Out of Time at Worlds Without End