In terms of global disasters, Robert Charles Wilson’s sci-fi novel “Spin” makes global warming look like a refreshingly warm breeze on an icy winter day. What, you might ask, could be more disastrous than global climate change? How about the impending demise of the sun?

Like the growing national debt, we are inclined to ignore the inevitable death of the sun because we won’t be around to experience it. It’s unlikely that the human race or anything but cockroaches will survive an event that is billions of years in Earth’s future. But what if we were to learn that the sun would be snuffed out in a matter of decades? How would we react? That’s the background behind this story set in our not too distant future.

The story begins with 11-year-old Tyler Dupree stargazing with his bests friends, twin sister and brother Diane and Jason Lawton. Tyler is the unofficial mediator between the twins. Jason is the genius admired and groomed by his father to take over the business when he grows up. Diane is overlooked, if not neglected, and challenges Jason on every front she can get a footing. Tyler admires Jason for his intellect but he is torn between his loyalty to Jason and his growing crush on Diane. As Jason lectures on comets and their origins, Diane spies on the adults in the dinner party they are outcasts from. That’s when the stars go out.

In the blink of an eye, a mysterious shield encompasses the earth blocking out the light of the stars. But it does more than that. The shield, which becomes known as the Spin, slows down time for the earth. For every year on earth that passes by, millions of years race by beyond the Spin. The Earth is propelling toward the future at a blinding rate. Early estimates suggest that the sun will burn out in forty years of earth’s time.

The novel plays out events jumping back and forth in time between the juvenile friends and their adult counterparts. While Tyler is the main character, he seems more of an observer torn between the man he admires and respects and the woman he grows more in love with every day. But Jason and Diane’s reactions to the spin, as one might guess, takes them in completely opposite directions. While Jason pursues an understanding of the Spin and the Hypotheticals (a name coined to describe whoever created the Spin), Diane pursues a spiritual answer that takes her away from her family and her confidant, Tyler.

Jason does follow in his father’s footsteps and becomes the leading scientist exploring the Spin. Diane becomes enmeshed in a pseudo cult convinced that the spin is a sign that Judgment Day is coming. As for the rest of the world, there’s an underlying current of denial. A generation grows up never having seen the stars or the moon, but life goes on as it always has. But as time goes on, a sense of doom and panic ensues. Civil law slowly breaks down. Crime escalates. For a growing number of people, suicide becomes their only hope of escaping their fate.

But Jason has a plan for survival of the species. As the director of Perihelion (his fathers company, which becomes joins with NASA), he sets in motion a plan to populate Mars. By staging rocket launches, he succeeds in first infiltrating nitrogen producing microorganisms into Mars’ barren soil. By the time the second wave of rockets launches, millions of years of evolution has taken place on Mars providing a rich soil for seeds to take root in to oxygenate the atmosphere. And so it goes until Mars is inhabitable. Pioneers set off to settle what was once a dead planet.

There’s no mass exodus to Mars. Transporting billions of people across space is both impractical and pointless. The point of the mission to Mars is two-fold, to preserve humanity and to enable the “Martians” to study the Spin from outside its effects. More than a million years go by for Mars before Earth discovers her fate. To their surprise, Mars too, is enshrouded with its very own Spin. A lone Martian returns to Earth with new technologies for Jason to explore and assists him with his research to understand the Spin and the Hypotheticals.

Meanwhile, Tyler must rescue Diane from the religious fanatics who have cut themselves off from the world in preparation for Armageddon as the Spin finally releases Earth from its time dampening effects. Diane has contracted a fatal disease in the process, and the only way Tyler can heal her is through the use of Martian drug designed to rejuvenate the body by rebuild it from the DNA out, thus extend an adults life for another 80 years.

I’m fascinated with the contrast that Wilson establishes between the twins. There’s an obvious comparison between science and religion. Jason is the quintessential atheist and Diane is the lost soul seeking answers from a divine being. But there’s an irony as well. Diane is betrayed by her pursuit of faith, but in the end she is rescued by Tyler, the man who has always loved her. Jason, on the other hand, finds the answers he is looking for, but it kills him in the end. He becomes a sort of atheist savior, if you will. And the final answer to the question of the Hypotheticals provides an escape from earth’s demise through an arch in the Indian Ocean that transports passengers to a new world–hardly heaven, but at least providing the continuation of humanity.

I enjoyed to telling of this story. I was fascinated by the devices, theories, and scientific twists in the plot. I felt the depiction of religion, though primarily focused on radicals and cults, was believable. And the end result of escaping the dying Earth to explore and build a new world left me with a sense of hope. But…

I couldn’t help but look even further into the future at the fate of the universe. As I understand it–and I’m no Stephen Hawking–just as the sun is destined to die, so too the universe as we know it has it’s limits. Depending upon which scientists you listen too, we have either a closed universe or an open universe. If it’s closed, all the matter in the universe–every planet, star and speck of dust–will eventually collapse in on itself effectively wiping out any remnant of humanity that remains. If the universe is open, it will continue to expand, wind down and eventually go cold–becoming a place unfit for life.

Overall, I highly recommend Spin for the avid sci-fi fan and for anyone who has ever wondered about the meaning of life. The story is a great jumping off point for discussion and contemplation of humanity’s purpose and existence. If you’ve read Spin, feel free to add your thoughts, questions and observations.

Robert Charles Wilson’s novel “Spin” was the recipient of the Hugo Award for best novel in 2005. Published by TOR.