Galileo's Dream
3 of 2010 Locus Award for Best SF Novel Callisto Europa Finalists of 2010 Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel Ganymede Historical Io Italy Jovians Jupiter Library - Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel Religion Renaissance Science Science Fiction Scientists Time Travel _isfdb arthur c clarke award finalist entanglement first contact historical characters planetary sentience
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Published: Aug 2, 2009
Description:
To the inhabitants of the Jovian moons, Galileo is a revered figure whose actions will influence the subsequent history of the human race. From the summit of their distant future, a charismatic renegade named Ganymede travels to the past to bring Galileo forward in an attempt to alter history and ensure the ascendancy of science over religion. And if that means Galileo must be burned at the stake, so be it. Yet between his brief and jarring visitations to this future, Galileo must struggle against the ignorance and superstition of his own time. And it is here that Robinson is at his most brilliant, showing Galileo in all his contradictions and complexity. Robinson's Galileo is a tour de force of imaginative and historical empathy: the shining center around which the novel revolves. From Galileo's heresy trial to the politics of far-future Jupiter, from the canals of Venice to frozen, mysterious Europa, Robinson illuminates the parallels between a distant past and an even more remote future—in the process celebrating the human spirit and calling into question the convenient truths of our own moment in time.