A World Too Near
Authors: Kay Kenyon
Praise for
Bright of the Sky
Book One of The Entire and the Rose
“At the start of this riveting launch of a new far-future SF series from Kenyon (
Tropic of Creation
), a disastrous mishap during interstellar space travel catapults pilot Titus Quinn with his wife, Johanna Arlis, and nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, into a parallel universe called the Entire. Titus makes it back to this dimension, his hair turned white, his memory gone, his family presumed dead, and his reputation ruined with the corporation that employed him. The corporation (in search of radical space travel methods) sends Titus (in search of Johanna and Sydney) back through the space-time warp. There, he gradually, painfully regains knowledge of its rulers, the cruel, alien Tarig; its subordinate, Chinese-inspired humanoid population, the Chalin; and his daughter’s enslavement. Titus’s transformative odyssey to reclaim Sydney reveals a Tarig plan whose ramifications will be felt far beyond his immediate family. Kenyon’s deft prose, high-stakes suspense, and skilled, thorough world building will have readers anxious for the next installment.”
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review
“. . . a splendid fantasy quest as compelling as anything by Stephen R. Don-aldson, Philip José Farmer, or yes, J. R. R. Tolkien.”
Washington Post
“. . . a bravura concept bolstered by fine writing; lots of plausible, thrilling action; old-fashioned heroism; and strong emotional hooks . . . the mark of a fine writer. Grade: A.”
Sci Fi Weekly
“Kay Kenyon’s
Bright of the Sky
is her richest and most ambitious novel yet— fascinating, and best of all, there promises to be more to come.”
Greg Bear
Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of
Quantico
and
Darwin’s Radio
“[A] star-maker, a magnificent book that should establish its author’s reputation as among the very best in the field today. Deservedly so, because it’s that good . . . a classic piece of world making. . . . [H]ere is another of those grand worlds whose mere idea invites us in to share in the wonder.
Bright of the Sky
enchants on the scale of your first encounter with the world inside of
Rama
, or the immense history behind the deserts of
Dune
, or the unbridled audacity of
Riverworld
. It’s an enormous stage demanding a grand story and, so far, Kenyon is telling it with style and substance. The characters are as solid as the world they live in, and Kenyon’s prose sweeps you up and never lets go. On its own, [it] could very well be the book of the year. If the rest of the series measures up, it will be one for the ages.”
“The author of
The Seeds of Time
imagines a dystopic version of our own world. Reminiscent of the groundbreaking novels of Philip K. Dick, Philip José Farmer, and Dan Simmons, her latest volume belongs in most libraries.”
Library Journal
“In a fascinating and gratifying feat of world building, Kenyon unfolds the wonders and the dangers of the Entire and an almost-Chinese culture that should remain engaging throughout what promises to be a grand epic, indeed.”
Booklist
“With a rich and vivid setting, peopled with believable and sympathetic characters and fascinating aliens, Kay Kenyon has launched an impressive saga with
Bright of the Sky
.”
“Kay Kenyon has created a dark, colorful, richly imagined world that works as both science fiction and fantasy, a classic space opera that recalls the novels of Dan Simmons. Titus Quinn bestrides
Bright of the Sky
in the great tradition of larger-than-life heroes, an engaging, romantic, unforgettable character. The stakes are high in this book, the characters memorable, the world complex and fascinating. A terrific story!”
Louise Marley, author of
Singer in the Snow
“Kenyon writes beautifully, her characters are multilayered and complex, and her extrasolar worlds are real and nuanced while at the same time truly alien.”
Robert J. Sawyer
Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of
Rollback
and
Mindscan
“Kay Kenyon takes the nuts and bolts of SF and weaves pure magic around them. The brilliance of her imagination is matched only by the beauty of her prose. You should buy
Bright of the Sky
immediately. It’s astounding!”
Sean Williams, author of
The Crooked Letter
and
Saturn Returns
Also by Kay Kenyon
BRIGHT OF THE SKY
Book One of The Entire and the Rose
A
WORLD
TOO
NEAR
A
WORLD
TOO
NEAR
KAY
KENYON
BOOK TWO
of
THE ENTIRE AND THE ROSE
Published 2008 by Pyr
®
, an imprint of Prometheus Books
A World Too Near
. Copyright © 2008 by Kay Kenyon. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Inquiries should be addressed to
Pyr
59 John Glenn Drive
Amherst, New York 14228–2119
VOICE: 716–691–0133, ext. 210
FAX: 716–691–0137
WWW.PYRSF.COM
12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kenyon, Kay.
A world too near / Kay Kenyon.
p. cm. — (The entire and the rose ; bk. 2)
ISBN 978–1–59102–642–6 (alk. paper)
I. Title.
PS3561.E5544W67 2008
813'.54—dc22
2007051802
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
In memory of our mothers,
Catherine Kenyon and Kathleen Overcast
CONTENTS
I
N WRITING THIS BOOK, I benefited greatly from the counsel and insight of my agent, Donald Maass, and from readers and fellow writers Karen Fishler and Barry Lyga. My thanks to them for their continuing dedication to this saga as it unfolds. I owe a special debt to Robert Metzger for advice related to physics and fiction, an interface of talents that I deeply envy. I take full responsibility for my willful liberties with science. On the local front, I am indebted to Pat Rutledge, owner of A Book for all Seasons in Leaven-worth, Washington. Love and thanks to my husband, Tom Overcast, my steady supporter and foremost reader through many drafts and by now innumerable pages. For astute copyediting, I could hope for no better than Deanna Hoak. I especially thank my editor Lou Anders, Pyr editorial director, for his enthusiasm and inspired shepherding of this series into print, including the remarkable contribution of artist Stephan Martiniere.
Storm wall, hold up the bright,
Storm wall, dark as Rose night,
Storm wall, where none can pass,
Storm wall, always to last.
—a child’s verse
A
BOVE THE FORTRESS THE SKY DIMMED TO LAVENDER, a time that passed for night in this world. Here every creature knew by their internal clock what time of night or day it was, all but Johanna Quinn, a woman of Earth. Between this universe and the next only a thin wall intervened, a permanent storm that forbade contact between Earth and the Entire. Or so most believed.
Johanna hurried down deserted corridors following the heavy drumbeat of the engine just ahead, a bass thrumming that pounded in her ears and the hollow of her chest. Coming to a divide in the hall she took the left branch, remembering her partial and wholly inadequate map. This hall too was deserted, and she rushed on. She prayed not to be discovered, although she had her alibi, thin as it might be.
Johanna wondered how he would kill her when the time came. There were good ways and bad, and she allowed herself—amid all her sacrifices— to have a strong preference in the matter. Her captors could do what they wished, of course. They were Tarig.
Tonight only one Tarig inhabited the Repel of Ahnenhoon, and Johanna profoundly hoped their paths would not cross. Her presence in this hall was not strictly forbidden, though. In her ten years of captivity she had earned a degree of freedom. Like a butterfly with a pin through its body, she could move up, down, and in a circle. Enough freedom to have learned by now how large, how vastly large, was her prison with its thousand miles of corridors and mazes. Even so, few sentients lived here—a measure of Tarig confidence regarding assault and their preference for solitary lives. However, they had not reckoned what havoc a lone woman could wreak.
Something yanked her from behind. She stifled a gasp, staggering. But it was only her long hair, caught for a moment in a knot of cables snaking along the wall. She tucked her hair into her tunic collar and hurried on, following the thunder of the engine, louder now as she approached its seat.
Up ahead was the opening she sought: the deck that circled the containment chamber. She passed through the arch and onto the catwalk where in time of siege defenders of the Repel might take aim against intruders. That Johanna was such an intruder her lord would be surprised to discover.
She gazed out on a broad valley of giant and baffling technology. Lights winked across acres of metal machines—many presumably computational devices—separated by paths as narrow as the Tarig who had made them. Alongside these machines tall struts held up silos of churning material, and these in turn sheltered docks of instrumentation, arcane in design and disorienting in their scale. An occasional gleam announced the work of molecular fabbers cleaning and repairing. Standing on the high deck Johanna could easily see the great engine nesting at the center of the cavern. It shuddered and boomed, knocking all other sounds out of the air. The engine of Ahnenhoon.
From this distance it looked no larger than her fist. It crouched in two lobes like a metal heart. Within sight but not within reach. At floor level the engine nested in the center of an unbreachable maze. This was why she had come here tonight: to look for patterns. Somewhere in this cavern lay a path— a continuous course from the perimeter of the walls to the engine. Someday she would walk that path, to the heart of it. She gripped the rail and peered, searching for any route she could spy from this vantage point. Her eyes grew weary with the paths and their twists. She prayed for keen sight, being one who believed in prayer. But each lane that she traced through the valley of machines came to an end or fed back to the beginning. The maze held.