Usurper of the Sun (36 page)
THIS STORY IS
a compilation of “Usurper of the Sun,” “Haze of Black-Body Radiation,” and “Lost Thought,” three short stories that appeared in
SF Magazine
, a monthly science fiction magazine published in Japan.
The novel tackles the classic science fiction topic of first contact with an alien intelligence. I tried to approach it with both scientific accuracy and believability. Yes, first contact stories are a dime a dozen and there are few ideas left that have not already been explored. Nonetheless, I was drawn to incorporating the latest scientific knowledge into the subject, creating an alien civilization that would act as a mirror, reflecting glimpses of our world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
While I tried to keep the science of space travel in the story as realistic as possible, I admit that there are a few spots that require readers to stretch their imaginations. One example would be the acceleration and speeds achieved by the ships in the story, which are nearly impossible even for a nuclear-powered propulsion system.
Countless people assisted and encouraged me in writing this book. It would be impossible to list every name here, but I would like to thank the following people in particular: Takumi Shibano and Akira Hori for their tireless advice throughout the creation of this book; Joji Hayashi, Tetsushi Kita, Iwao Eto, Makoto Kikuchi, Miho Sakai, Taizo Kobayashi, Hiroe Suga, Jun Fukue, Shinya Matsuura, Ryuichi Kaneko, Gen Kuroki, Atsushi Noda, Masao Hirota, Atsuhi Shiraishi, Tomohiro Araki, and Hidefumi Kagawa for offering advice in the form of their expert knowledge.
There is no way I can express enough gratitude toward Masamichi Osako and his organization, Contact Japan, for all the incredible influence their activities have had on me. Readers of Japanese can find more information on what they do at
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/contact/japan/
.
I would also like to thank those who gave their special congratulations when the short-story version of this novel, which was published in
SF Magazine,
won the Seiun Award in the Japanese short story category, in particular the members of the Space Authors Club; translators Makoto Yamagishi, Tetsuya Kohama and his wife Mii Mimura, Nozomi Omori and his wife Yoshiko Saito; and dubbing artist Eri Sendai.
Cover illustrator (for the original J Collection edition) Bukichi Nadeara and Kazutaka Miyatake, who drew the illustration for
SF Magazine,
both created images that far exceeded anything I could have ever imagined.
Finally, I would like to thank Yoshihiro Shiozawa of Hayakawa Publishing who went above and beyond the call of duty as an editor to provide me with invaluable ideas, without which this story would never have evolved into a novel.
April 2002
AFTERWORD TO PAPERBACK EDITION
IT HAS BEEN
three years since the J Collection edition of this book was published. With the publication of the paperback version just around the corner, now seemed like a good time to reread the book myself, which I did with a certain amount of trepidation. For good or for bad, there was nothing of particular mention that stood out as having become antiquated. Some of the basic ideas behind the Builders, such as the evolution of consciousness and theory of mind have remained popular topics of research and continue to be used in different types of literary works. Similar to Freudian psychoanalysis, I think that advances in neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology are destined to permeate our culture quite broadly.
One device mentioned in the original version of the book that has become somewhat old in the past three years is the Hubble Space Telescope. Although it has not yet become outdated, it does hang in quite a precarious predicament due to the fact that it cannot be serviced. Since it is unclear whether or not it will still be in operation in the the coming years and since plans for its successor are not yet decided, I have chosen to use the term “space telescope” in the paperback version.
I am not the only person who thinks that the threat of an alien invasion would be the one factor that would cause the space industry to grow by leaps and bounds. Of course, I would rather see it grow as a result of our desire to explore, rather than have it happen out of pure necessity. The former would allow humanity to finally take a good, hard look at itself objectively, eliminating the need for fictional stories such as this one.
Housuke Nojiri
February 2005
HOUSUKE NOJIRI
was born in Mie, Japan in 1961. After working in instrumentation control, CAD programming and video game design, he published his first work,
The Blind Spot of Veis
, based on the video game
Creguian
, in 1992. He gained popularity with his subsequent works, the
Creguian
series and the
Rocket Girl
series. In 2002, he published
Usurper of the Sun
, ushering in a new era of space science fiction in Japan. After first appearing as a series of short stories,
Usurper
won the Seiun Award for best Japanese science fiction novel of 2002. His other works include
Pendulum of Pinieru
and
Fuwa-Fuwa no Izumi.
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