Spin – Robert Charles Wilson

2005, 368 pages.
One night, sometime around our time or in the very near future, the stars disappeared. Tyler witnessed this event when he was 12 years old with his best friends, Jason and Diane. They were the children of a wealthy businessman living in the big house, gifted kids who were going to a private school. He was the son of their housekeeper, living in a small house on their estate, going to a public school. But they were still best friends, and he even started feeling more than that towards Diane, and it seems like these feelings were mutual. But the night when the stars disappeared, by a phenomenon that was later known as “spin”, changed it all.
First we meet Tyler and Diane years later, in a city in south-east Asia, where Tyler is about to go through some kind of mysterious treatment. As one of the treatment’s side effects he goes back to his memory to when it all started, that night when the stars disappeared, and tells the story of what happened to them – and to the world – since then.
The book is filled with scientific ideas, some of them are quiet interesting and intriguing, but when the mystery was solved, for me it wasn’t like “wow” but more like “oh, well.” (a teenager would probably say “whatEVER".) The human story – of what happened to the main characters – unfortunately didn’t have more success in grabbing my interest. I was never really drawn-in, or touched or moved by what was going on.
It was a nice and easy read, full of interesting scientific ideas, but not more than that for me.
It is a first part of a trilogy, the second book “Axis” was published in 2007 and the third is expected this year, but I don’t feel the urge to go on to the next books in the series.