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Zoom: Strange New Worlds

A Virtual Speculative Fiction Book Club

Join us on Zoom to discuss “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a ‘first alien contact’ adventure. You can pick up a copy at Norton Branch Library.

With “Children of Time” futurist Adrian Tchaikovsky nabbed his first Arthur C. Clarke Award and posed intriguing quandaries: what if the last humans were forced to colonize another planet, only to discover it’s occupied by a wholly alien intelligent species? Will humans’ historic struggles to unite behind a cohesive leadership even among themselves doom their final efforts?

The ark spaceship Gilgamesh carries Earth’s last survivors of environmental devastation. Its crew, laboring under a domineering captain, awakens periodically from a cryogenic sleep to ensure safe passage to a planet which, they hope, generations ago Dr. Avrana Kern and her team succeeded in preparing for human habitation with the use of a sophisticated nanovirus. They don’t learn how spectacularly Kern’s mission failed or why, until it’s almost too late, and divert to a different hostile world where they strive for centuries before resuming course.

Meanwhile, the sophisticated species and society developing on “Kern’s World” has been drastically different than their progenitor (Kern, preserved as an A.I. consciousness on an observation satellite) planned. Theirs is not a society primed to embrace humans as kin or as superiors, much less as gods, and humanity must face a long overdue reckoning as both sides decide whether to try to make alliances or war.

Visit the library catalog to reserve this and other titles by the author.

A Zoom link for this virtual event will be sent out 2-3 days prior.

If you do not have an email address, please call 330.825.7800 to learn how to participate by phone.

Please log in 10 minutes before the start of the program to check your computer connection.

A webcam and microphone may be necessary for participation in this interactive event. If you have one or neither of these, your level of participation will be limited.

Please contact the library if you decide not to attend.

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