Celestial Matters
Encyclopedia
Celestial Matters is a science fantasy
Science fantasy
Science fantasy is a mixed genre within speculative fiction drawing elements from both science fiction and fantasy. Although in some terms of its portrayal in recent media products it can be defined as instead of being a mixed genre of science fiction and fantasy it is instead a mixing of the...

 novel, set in an alternate universe with different laws of physics, written by Richard Garfinkle
Richard Garfinkle
Richard Garfinkle is an American writer of science fiction.He is best known as the author of Celestial Matters, a novel published by Tor Books, which won the Compton Crook Award in 1997....

 and published by Tor Books
Tor Books
Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...

 in 1996. It is a work of alternate history and meticulously elaborated "alternate science", as the physics of this world and its surrounding cosmos are based on the physics of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 and ancient Chinese Taoist alchemy.

Setting

In the world of Celestial Matters, Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian physics
Aristotelian physics
Aristotelian Physics the natural sciences, are described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle . In the Physics, Aristotle established general principles of change that govern all natural bodies; both living and inanimate, celestial and terrestrial—including all motion, change in respect...

 are valid scientific models of the surrounding world and cosmos. The Earth lies at the center of the universe, surrounded by crystal spheres which hold each of the planets, the sun and the moon, all enclosed in the sphere of the fixed stars. Earthly matter, composed of the classical four elements
Four elements
Four elements may refer to:* Classical elements, such as air, fire, earth and water* 4 Elements, an album by Chronic Future* Group 4 element, one of the chemical elements in Group 4 of the periodic table...

 of earth, air, fire, and water, naturally moves in straight lines. Heavenly matter naturally rises and moves in circles. This is the universe as understood by the ancient Greeks.

The science of the ancient Chinese also applies, but as the novel is told from the perspective of the Greeks, it is less well understood. Xi
Qi
In traditional Chinese culture, qì is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts...

, the Chinese notion of spirit and flow, can be manipulated to move objects and energy. The Chinese five elements
Five elements
Five elements may refer to: In philosophy: *Five elements *Mahabhuta*Pancha Tattva *Five elements In science:*Boron, element 5*Group 5 element*Period 5 element-See also:...

 of earth, metal, water, wood, and fire are transmuted one into the other. Part of the central theme of the book is the two system's mutual misunderstanding and bafflement of each other.

In this world, the Delian League
Delian League
The Delian League, founded in circa 477 BC, was an association of Greek city-states, members numbering between 150 to 173, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco–Persian Wars...

 (Greeks) and Middle Kingdom (Chinese) have been fighting a war for nearly a thousand years, ever since the time of Alexander the Great when the warrior-culture of Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

 and the Athenian Akademe were fused into a half-world conquering force. Their technologies are locked together, however, and neither empire can gain the upper hand. Each side secretly despairs of its chances and has come to consider desperate measures.

Plot summary

The story is narrated by Aias of Tyre, a scientist of the Delian League, who is preparing to embark on Project Sunthief as scientific commander. This project is an audacious and desperate mission to sail a spaceship carved out of a piece of the moon herself out through the spheres, to catch a piece of the sun and bring it back to earth to annihilate the Middler capital city. This, the league hopes, will finally end the war and give it victory.

The Middlers have been assassinating Delian generals and politicians, so Aias is assigned a bodyguard, Captain Yellow Hare of Sparta, a woman of Xeroki
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

 ancestry. Shortly after the launch of the moon-ship, Chandra's Tear, it becomes clear that there is a saboteur on board. Aias' old friend Ramonojon, a mathematician, has expressed doubts about the rightness of annihilating an entire city and is viewed with dark suspicion by Anaxamander, the heroic military commander of the project. Mihradarius, the fire scientist who has devised the sun-catching method, keeps his own counsel.

As sabotage, catastrophe, and exhilarating maneuvers overtake the voyage, Aias begins to wonder about the wisdom of the Delian strategy. Eventually he comes to understand the desperation of the Middle Kingdom, thanks to a Middler scientist stowaway, and they try to synthesize between them a way for the two world-spanning empires to resolve their differences. There remains a life-or-death race to earth on a crippled ship in the hope of bringing hope.

Innovative features

The science of the Greeks and Chinese is worked out in rigorous detail.

There is a strong pacifist element running through the work. Soldiers are not mocked - Yellow Hare is a highly capable, dignified warrior - but the military bureaucracy as embodied in Anaxamander is treated with reserve. Aias, originally a cloistered scientist working on his projects in isolation, through conversations with Ramonojon, Yellow Hare, and Phan the Middler stowaway, comes to understand the human consequences of his studies and experiments. The war, grinding, exhausting, centuries old, has brought two great empires to consider unspeakable acts, and Garfinkle gives hope that they can end it.

Celestial Matters won the 1997 Compton Crook Award
Compton Crook Award
The Compton Crook Award is presented to the best first novel of the year in the field of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc, at their annual Baltimore-area science fiction convention, Balticon, held on Memorial Day weekend in the...

 for best first science fiction novel.

See also

  • Inne pieśni, a 2003 Polish novel with similar premises.
  • Sail On! Sail On!
    Sail On! Sail On!
    "Sail On! Sail On!" is a alternate history short story from Philip José Farmer, originally published in 1952. In this alternative 1492, the Earth is flat, despite scepticism from scientists and philosophers over this geological provenance...

    , a 1952 SF short story by Philip Jose Farmer
    Philip José Farmer
    Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....

    with similar premises.
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