The Crucible of Time
Encyclopedia
The Crucible of Time is a fix-up
Fix-up
A fix-up is a novel created from short stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material—such as a frame story—is written for the new novel. The term was coined by the science fiction...

 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by John Brunner
John Brunner (novelist)
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...

. It was first published in 1983.

Serials

Parts 1 and 2 appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy and perpetuates the name of author and biochemist Isaac Asimov...

as "The Fire is Lit" (Sep 1982) and "Fusing and Refusing" (Jan 1983).

Plot

The novel deals with the efforts of an alien species to escape their homeworld, whose system is passing through a cloud of interstellar debris
Molecular cloud
A molecular cloud, sometimes called a stellar nursery if star formation is occurring within, is a type of interstellar cloud whose density and size permits the formation of molecules, most commonly molecular hydrogen ....

, resulting in a high rate of in-falling matter
Impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...

. The species' unique biology and their biological technology complicate matters.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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