Tau Zero (ISBN 978-0575077324) is perhaps the best known novel by Poul Anderson, who won innumerable awards for his short fiction, but was never quite as successful at novel length.
Leonora Christine
It's the 23rd century and in Stockholm a couple are taking a tour of the local sites. Charles Reymont and Ingrid Lindgren will be the Constable and Executive Officer aboard the starship Leonora Christine, destined with her crew of fifty for the Beta Virginis, thirty-two light years away. Because she cannot exceed the speed of light, over half a century will pass before she can return to Earth -- assuming that she ever does -for ideally, the crew of Leonora Christine will settle the planet.
But for the crew, the effects of time dilation are such that for them, the voyage will last only five years. For the closer the spaceship comes to the speed of light, the more time slows. For a ship travelling at ninety per cent of c (light-speed) for each second that passes on the ship, five will tick by in the outside universe. At ninety five per cent of c, ten seconds will elapse for each shipboard one. This rate of dilation is known as Tau.
Three years into the voyage, the Leonora Christine passes through a diffuse nebula, the impact of which damages the ship. Unable to decelerate, the ship edges closer and closer to light-speed and Tau Zero -- when time stops.
Of course the Leonora Christine cannot actually ever reach light speed, but the shipboard years become ever greater in relation to the outside universe as the crew begins to disintegrate under the psychological pressure, first of knowing that everyone they've ever known has died, then that humanity is extinct, and finally in a desperate as they head for the end of the universe itself....
"Space flamed around her, a firestorm, hydrogen aglow from that supernal sun which was forming at the heart of existence, which burned brighter and brighter as the galaxies rained down into it. The gas hid the central travail behind sheets, banners and spears of radiance, aurora, flame, lightning." (p181)
'Hard' SF
'Hard' science fiction is SF that rigorously adheres to the laws of physics as we know them today -- so faster than light and time travel are proscribed. It could be said to be the origin of today's Mundane movement, which goes further in wishing to exclude many traditional SF tropes such as aliens, but has a much more rigorous underpinning. Other examples of Hard SF writers are Gregory Benford and Vernor Vinge.
But the best of Hard SF looks not only at the science, but also at the effects of that science on people.
Anderson wrote such a wide variety of spec-fic -space opera, fantasy, historical SF, adventure- that his hard SF is often overlooked. Yet novels such as Tau Zero and After Doomsday are as good as any hard SF novel - indeed, the legendary SF critic James Blish described Tau Zero as "the ultimate hard science fiction novel."
Greg Bear
During his long career Anderson won seven Hugo and three Nebula Awards, all for his short fiction, and his novelette 'Call Me Joe,' itself a hard early SF piece about tele-presencing on Jupiter was included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Anderson became the sixteenth SFWA Grand Master in 1998, but sadly passed away in the summer of 2001. He was survived by his daughter and widow Karen, with whom he collaborated on several novels and a collection, and a daughter Astrid, who is married to Greg Bear, another writer who has carried on -and even extended-- writing Hard SF.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
