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Tomorrow and Tomorrow
A man from Earth's distant past is humanity's only hope for a future...
Drake Merlin's wife, the love of his life, is dying of a rare, fatal disease for which there is no cure. Not now, in the 21st century. But surely in the future...
For Drake there is only one have Ana's body frozen until she can be cured. And he will go with her into the cryowomb. It is a desperate gamble born of folly, obsession...and love.
Thus begins an epic journey across eons, as Drake is revived again and again, only to find that Ana is beyond help. Millions of years past his first sleep, he learns there is hope for her restoration--at the Omega Point, where the universe collapses, merging past and present. But first he will be awakened to become humanity's unwilling savior. For an alien menace is laying the solar system to waste, and only an anachronism from the days of human barbarism can save an enlightened race....
Drake Merlin's wife, the love of his life, is dying of a rare, fatal disease for which there is no cure. Not now, in the 21st century. But surely in the future...
For Drake there is only one have Ana's body frozen until she can be cured. And he will go with her into the cryowomb. It is a desperate gamble born of folly, obsession...and love.
Thus begins an epic journey across eons, as Drake is revived again and again, only to find that Ana is beyond help. Millions of years past his first sleep, he learns there is hope for her restoration--at the Omega Point, where the universe collapses, merging past and present. But first he will be awakened to become humanity's unwilling savior. For an alien menace is laying the solar system to waste, and only an anachronism from the days of human barbarism can save an enlightened race....
432 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Charles Sheffield
196 books168 followersCharles A. Sheffield (June 25, 1935 – November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.
His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.
For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.
He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.
Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.
He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.
He was married to writer Nancy Kress.
His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.
For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.
He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.
Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.
He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.
He was married to writer Nancy Kress.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
May 4, 2022
Imagine the love of your life dying of some incurable illness. Just how far would one go to change this? Drake Merlin learns a lot about himself in this situation.
A wonderful read. Romantic and nostalgic and engrossing. Topnotch sci-fi.
More TBA.
A wonderful read. Romantic and nostalgic and engrossing. Topnotch sci-fi.
More TBA.
August 24, 2017
Is it possible for a human to survive billions of years, travel between galaxies, and eventually witness the end of the universe? Sheffield explains how, and it's actually quite believable. What's not believable is the main character's motivation for doing so. Perhaps man may find a love so great it can drive him to any length to save the woman he loves, but I don't believe this is the man who would do it. What he really possesses is obstinancy, not love.
The most fascinating part of this story is Sheffield's exploration of the odd problems future humans will encounter in their gradual evolution. They inevitably abandon their frail bodies in favor of a variety of organic and inorganic "constructs," before finally settling on a simple and efficient distributed computer network to store the intellect and memories of every individual in a composite form.
Yes it's trippy stuff, and the end is oddly abstract, but there are some very interesting moments scattered throughout.
The most fascinating part of this story is Sheffield's exploration of the odd problems future humans will encounter in their gradual evolution. They inevitably abandon their frail bodies in favor of a variety of organic and inorganic "constructs," before finally settling on a simple and efficient distributed computer network to store the intellect and memories of every individual in a composite form.
Yes it's trippy stuff, and the end is oddly abstract, but there are some very interesting moments scattered throughout.
January 2, 2017
Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a slightly pulpy but highly enjoyable science fiction story about a man who cryogenically freezes himself and his dying wife in the hopes of curing her in the future. What I really like about this book: 1) It addresses the question of, if you have cryogenically frozen yourself, why would anyone in the future be incentivized to unfreeze you? 2) It operates on a time scale that is unfathomable, as our hero is frozen and unfrozen many times over the course of the novel. 3) Sheffield is a very entertaining writer, and this book is engrossing, while also making use of real science and raising dozens of interesting points and questions about the future. The biggest flaw is that the basic premise of the protagonist's devotion to curing is wife is a total McGuffin and a missed opportunity to create some depth of characterization.
May 15, 2021
Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a good time-travel-through-cryogenics novel, a la Rip van Winkle and Buck Rogers. The protagonist's wife is dying from an incurable disease, so he puts himself with her in cold storage until such time as she can be cured. He's revived many times and visits many stages of social and (and eventually human) evolution, before a gosh-wow-sense-of-wonder climax. Good hard-sf (with a romantic slant) from a master of the form.
July 1, 2014
Dare I say it? A perfect "hard" science fiction novel. In this book Sheffield beats all comers, including Clarke and Asimov.
August 9, 2015
Join Drake Merlin as he mansplains through the billions of years of humanity's future! Apparently he is the only person of our time to have the idea to cryogenically freeze both himself and his wife so that they can be together in the future after a cure for her disease has been found.
While he may not mansplain his way through every page of the book, there is an awful lot of "only I" can save humanity, understand love, persevere, etc. He gets annoying pretty quickly.
While he may not mansplain his way through every page of the book, there is an awful lot of "only I" can save humanity, understand love, persevere, etc. He gets annoying pretty quickly.
November 5, 2018
A gooey love story wrapped in an improbably hard SF shell. Meh
November 13, 2008
At the beginning, I thought this might be a book about music, composition, and how it changes over time. I should've known better since the author is Charles Sheffield.
I loved this book. I don't know that I can explain why I enjoyed it so much. At times, it was hard to follow. It takes a lot of imagination to keep up with the story line. It also left me a little afraid for our future as you see humanity evolving and embracing (or eschewing) technology.
One point I really appreciated was the idea that a pacifist today could be seen as a barbarian in the distant future just because of the fact that war and conflict permeate our society. Even the most gentle of souls is touched by violence.
I loved this book. I don't know that I can explain why I enjoyed it so much. At times, it was hard to follow. It takes a lot of imagination to keep up with the story line. It also left me a little afraid for our future as you see humanity evolving and embracing (or eschewing) technology.
One point I really appreciated was the idea that a pacifist today could be seen as a barbarian in the distant future just because of the fact that war and conflict permeate our society. Even the most gentle of souls is touched by violence.
January 5, 2009
One of my most favourite Science Fiction books. When you think you know what the book is about and what is going to happen next, watch out! This is Sheffield. He took me on a journey of imagination more logical and creative than my puny little mind could conceive.
February 15, 2022
Novela entretenida, aunque no entre las mejores de un autor que hace el tipo de cf que más me gusta. El fin del tiempo, el punto Omega y menos habilidad para explotar el sentido de la maravilla que en sus mejores obras. Hay diferencias de ritmo y digresiones que no le sientan muy bien.
October 4, 2013
A strange book this. It's basically three parts. The first third, and the last little bit, are very reminiscent of two things. The first is the one most commonly cited, which is the Asimov short story The Last Question. However, it actually resonated more (for me) with the Babylon 5 episode, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", the fourth season finale of the series. It concerns a series of time-jumps, charting through time.
Part two is an odd one, It's a battle, but not a battle, but one where time has no meaning (unlike the previous section where time was the key) It was perhaps the most peculiar, and didn't work well for me.
Finally, part three charts a voyage for one... aspect of the main character, and evoked memories of Red Dwarf done seriously. Yet, just as it starts to get interesting, it
Also giving a 'huh? WTF' factor is the first extra-galactic bit, right at the end of part 1.
It had a good idea, but ultimately, it left me cold, despite the high points. The ending was weak, and the three parts didn't gel well. Part 1 was good, Part two was terrible, and part 3 was far too short.
If you're a fan of Sheffield, then go for it, else I'd probably advise giving it a miss.
Part two is an odd one, It's a battle, but not a battle, but one where time has no meaning (unlike the previous section where time was the key) It was perhaps the most peculiar, and didn't work well for me.
Finally, part three charts a voyage for one... aspect of the main character, and evoked memories of Red Dwarf done seriously. Yet, just as it starts to get interesting, it
Also giving a 'huh? WTF' factor is the first extra-galactic bit, right at the end of part 1.
It had a good idea, but ultimately, it left me cold, despite the high points. The ending was weak, and the three parts didn't gel well. Part 1 was good, Part two was terrible, and part 3 was far too short.
If you're a fan of Sheffield, then go for it, else I'd probably advise giving it a miss.
October 29, 2024
3.5.
Like all good scifi im left with so many questions and thoughts to digest. Overall I enjoyed it but it didn't quite stick the landing for me to give it 4 stars.
It had some incredible points but also some parts which weren't explored well enough for me. Very much scifi first, love story second in delivery. I think that focus is what made it ultimately not quite as good as it could have been.
Like all good scifi im left with so many questions and thoughts to digest. Overall I enjoyed it but it didn't quite stick the landing for me to give it 4 stars.
It had some incredible points but also some parts which weren't explored well enough for me. Very much scifi first, love story second in delivery. I think that focus is what made it ultimately not quite as good as it could have been.
May 2, 2016
Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a noticeably imperfect book. All but the final couple of chapters of the book's second part (Illiad) feel useless and tacked on; not really fitting with the other two parts. Even in the best parts of the book, there are occasionally bits of clunky dialogue or awkward exposition, or character actions that just aren't interesting; a lot of the time Sheffield writes protagonist Drake Merlin as a nonchalant automaton.
I think that this book still represents some of the best science-fiction put to paper. Chronicling the obsessive journey of a man who wishes to save his wife by placing himself in crionic storage throughout time, Tomorrow and Tomorrow represents the perfect synthesis of hard science and personal storytelling. The first is the tale of Drake Merlin as he seeks to save his wife, and the second is that of humanity's development and transcendence into non-corporeal beings who become able to master every facet of the universe. Later on in the novel, there's a lot of interesting stuff on personal identity and individuality in the face of electronic storage and nigh-infinite duplication.
The struggle of Drake to defeat death - and struggle throughout all of time to do so - is one that I find really relatable and powerful. And as humanity changes to the point where the only thing that he could anchor himself to is the hope of one day reuniting with his wife, one feels a great deal of poignancy as he endures hell after hell, death after death, and conscious existence through billions of years (and unconsciousness through tens of billions), all with the hope of reaching the end of time and finally being able to reunite with his beloved.
The novel particularly hit me at the end of the first part - the most compelling and narratively sound part, chronicling Drake's freezing and reawakening through several million years as civilisation irrevocably changes around him - during an interlude chapter. The reader is at once shown the horrible and cruel hopelessness of Drake's situation and with the desolate place that he ends up in, along with the faint possibility that he (or more accurately, a copy of him) will succeed and find the happiness that he's been deprived of and the organic form we stuck with throughout the entirity of the first part will never find. Along with that, we see a confused and well-meaning alien life try its best to reach out and communicate with him, despite the hopelessness.
Moving and horizon-broadening. This is science-fiction at its best, and the best legacy that Mr. Sheffield could have possibly left behind to us.
I think that this book still represents some of the best science-fiction put to paper. Chronicling the obsessive journey of a man who wishes to save his wife by placing himself in crionic storage throughout time, Tomorrow and Tomorrow represents the perfect synthesis of hard science and personal storytelling. The first is the tale of Drake Merlin as he seeks to save his wife, and the second is that of humanity's development and transcendence into non-corporeal beings who become able to master every facet of the universe. Later on in the novel, there's a lot of interesting stuff on personal identity and individuality in the face of electronic storage and nigh-infinite duplication.
The struggle of Drake to defeat death - and struggle throughout all of time to do so - is one that I find really relatable and powerful. And as humanity changes to the point where the only thing that he could anchor himself to is the hope of one day reuniting with his wife, one feels a great deal of poignancy as he endures hell after hell, death after death, and conscious existence through billions of years (and unconsciousness through tens of billions), all with the hope of reaching the end of time and finally being able to reunite with his beloved.
The novel particularly hit me at the end of the first part - the most compelling and narratively sound part, chronicling Drake's freezing and reawakening through several million years as civilisation irrevocably changes around him - during an interlude chapter. The reader is at once shown the horrible and cruel hopelessness of Drake's situation and with the desolate place that he ends up in, along with the faint possibility that he (or more accurately, a copy of him) will succeed and find the happiness that he's been deprived of and the organic form we stuck with throughout the entirity of the first part will never find. Along with that, we see a confused and well-meaning alien life try its best to reach out and communicate with him, despite the hopelessness.
Moving and horizon-broadening. This is science-fiction at its best, and the best legacy that Mr. Sheffield could have possibly left behind to us.
June 13, 2018
This isn't a great book, but I did enjoy reading this story of a man who loses his wife to disease and has her and himself frozen so she can be cured in the future and they can be together again. Now that is dedication! This book had a lot of potential it didn't live up to, hence three stars instead of five.
Some of the problems I had:
* Supposedly, this is hard science fiction. It even says so on the cover. It's not. Sure, it's not the squishy soft scifi of Star Wars, but a lot of the technology in the book just works without any explanation of how it works. The final appendix containing a boring astronomy lecture did not make this book hard SF.
* It was too obvious in the first half of the book that we were just getting a guided tour of different time periods in the future. The story was too thin here and the problems solved themselves.
* I hated how the main character . That was just the writer trying to keep the story going further into the future. A better writer would have made it part of the plot.
* In the end, the writer pulled a Deus Ex Machina to
*
Some of the problems I had:
* Supposedly, this is hard science fiction. It even says so on the cover. It's not. Sure, it's not the squishy soft scifi of Star Wars, but a lot of the technology in the book just works without any explanation of how it works. The final appendix containing a boring astronomy lecture did not make this book hard SF.
* It was too obvious in the first half of the book that we were just getting a guided tour of different time periods in the future. The story was too thin here and the problems solved themselves.
* I hated how the main character . That was just the writer trying to keep the story going further into the future. A better writer would have made it part of the plot.
* In the end, the writer pulled a Deus Ex Machina to
*
July 12, 2016
Me pareció un libro maravilloso, hay una mezcla infinita de elementos que solo pueden ser obra de un genio. Sin embargo, Merlin me parece un personaje muy estático... Quizás la trama se me antojó un poco superficial. Millones de años no pasan sin dejar huella, y cuesta creer en la profundidad de sus heridas. ¿Realmente puede un corazón mantenerse siempre fiel? A mi me resulta una idea improbable. Y a pesar de ello, pienso que la belleza de esta novela es que te permite degustar todas las posibilidades. No perder la esperanza... Sentir realmente que no importa la duración del viaje, siempre tendrá sentido si se tiene un hogar al cual volver.
Reseña completa: El hombre mata aquello que ama en Venezuela Mundial
Reseña completa: El hombre mata aquello que ama en Venezuela Mundial
February 11, 2019
I really enjoyed this book's exploration of humanity's potential and their future. Watching Drake follow his wife's cryofrozen corpse throughout millennia was an emotional journey, and a framing device that allows for interesting episodic storytelling with thematic undertones. In the latter half of the book, technology develops to such an extent that it allows for further sidestories and developments, which were also enjoyable.
The character work is not a strong suit, but it's better than serviceable and better than Asimov, which is my absolute bar for hard sf. Would recommend to anyone who enjoys relativistic sf stories about the future of humanity and the universe itself.
The character work is not a strong suit, but it's better than serviceable and better than Asimov, which is my absolute bar for hard sf. Would recommend to anyone who enjoys relativistic sf stories about the future of humanity and the universe itself.
May 21, 2017
A hard SF love story you should not miss
This book shows why the late Charles Sheffield is one of the best hard SF writers of the 20th century and beyond.
At its heart this book is a love story about a man who will do anything to get back the love of his life - even if this means he must journey to the end of the universe and beyond. But it is also a hard SF masterpiece that stretches your imagination to its elastic limit without playing fast and loose with real science.
Most highly recommended.
This book shows why the late Charles Sheffield is one of the best hard SF writers of the 20th century and beyond.
At its heart this book is a love story about a man who will do anything to get back the love of his life - even if this means he must journey to the end of the universe and beyond. But it is also a hard SF masterpiece that stretches your imagination to its elastic limit without playing fast and loose with real science.
Most highly recommended.
June 29, 2017
An exceptional SF novel very much in the mode of classic Asimov or Clarke - the characters were just okay but the ideas and scope are great. Very ambitious writing that ultimately tackles the timeline of the lifetime of the universe (and beyond?) really interesting and solid science infuses the book written by a guy who really knows what he is talking about - the nonfiction appendix is great and very much worth reading on its own.
July 19, 2017
Science fiction at its best
Wow! This was a great book. A love story spanning 100s of billions of years and 100s of billions of individuals contributing to the story. In finishing the book, I feel like I've lost a friend.
Wow! This was a great book. A love story spanning 100s of billions of years and 100s of billions of individuals contributing to the story. In finishing the book, I feel like I've lost a friend.
December 1, 2018
I couldn't get past page 150. The whole premise is redonkulous.
December 28, 2018
Some of the cosmology is a little dated but overall a great book.
April 5, 2021
This fun novel of the future begins when our protagonist's terminally-ill wife goes into cryosleep. Protagonist then decides to follow her himself - after making himself interesting enough to the future that he hopes they'll wake him up. His scheme succeeds... except they still aren't interested in waking his wife just yet. So, he takes a voyage into the still more distant future... and so on, facing new problems each time, until he's the only one left from his era and thus uniquely placed to solve some new problems for the even-farther-future world. And then, it turns out this's a universe facing the Big Crunch, and time itself proves his enemy and friend.
This isn't the deepest book, and the characters (except for our protagonist himself) are fairly shallow. Sheffield has the excuse that his book sweeps across billions of years as, essentially, a set of short stories where our protagonist's main enemies are society and the universe itself. But still, if you accept the sort of book he's writing, it's a fun adventure of a single person pitting himself against the universe.
This isn't the deepest book, and the characters (except for our protagonist himself) are fairly shallow. Sheffield has the excuse that his book sweeps across billions of years as, essentially, a set of short stories where our protagonist's main enemies are society and the universe itself. But still, if you accept the sort of book he's writing, it's a fun adventure of a single person pitting himself against the universe.
June 5, 2017
El libro está bien, es un derroche de imaginación y proyección. Fue muy entreteido leerlo, sin embargo, tengo algunos comentarios críticos que hacer.
Spoilers Ahead :)
Una vez que múltiples copias de Drake se diseminan por el universo el autor se queda corto en historias posibles, y nos cuenta solo unas pocas, no determinantes ni relevantes para la historia, pero si entretenidas. Las criaturas Shivas me decepcionaron, para ser seres no conscientes era demasiado el daño, la escala y la velocidad.
El viaje a Canopus no fue suficientemente bien explicado, a velocidad sub-lumínica llegó allí en meses, eso no lo entendí.
Luego está la obsesión con Ana, si, era el amor de su vida, pero era el impulso su-yacente de vivir millones de años y multiplicarse, creo que las situaciones de miles de mundos podrían ser mas importantes que la relación de una sola persona.
Por último, están los absurdos periodos de tiempo, millones de años se pasan como si nada y los personajes siguen y siguen.
Spoilers Ahead :)
Una vez que múltiples copias de Drake se diseminan por el universo el autor se queda corto en historias posibles, y nos cuenta solo unas pocas, no determinantes ni relevantes para la historia, pero si entretenidas. Las criaturas Shivas me decepcionaron, para ser seres no conscientes era demasiado el daño, la escala y la velocidad.
El viaje a Canopus no fue suficientemente bien explicado, a velocidad sub-lumínica llegó allí en meses, eso no lo entendí.
Luego está la obsesión con Ana, si, era el amor de su vida, pero era el impulso su-yacente de vivir millones de años y multiplicarse, creo que las situaciones de miles de mundos podrían ser mas importantes que la relación de una sola persona.
Por último, están los absurdos periodos de tiempo, millones de años se pasan como si nada y los personajes siguen y siguen.
July 4, 2018
Well... let's say this, you want your mind blown with the sheer amount of knowledge someone knows about the known universe, READ THIS BOOK. It's a love story, sure, but beneath the story and characters you'll have a base understanding of what the universe is, how it moves, and how you fit into the "big" picture. This book was difficult to read due to the concepts it introduces, I will admit that a few pages I read aloud so that I could better understand what was being written. I was so impressed by the pace of which this book reads; but here is my warning, if you do not what to hear about a 100 billion years of longing... don't pick this up. If you want to see how a 100 billions years can be a romp through space and time, but learn about space science... Don't delay! Pick this gem up TODAY!
February 5, 2019
I thought the main character's all-consuming obsession to join his cryogenically preserved wife in cold storage until a hoped-for eventual reunion was not a great framing device for otherwise intriguing speculaton on the post-human deep future, cosmology, and the question of identity/self when minds can be uploaded, duplicated, combined, and transferred practically without limit. I can see how the romantic/creepy devotion has a certain mythic quality, but it also made me dislike the main character. I have read about most of the speculative ideas (like the Omega Point, where all information that ever existed could be recovered) before, so the book felt like a long-winded attempt to enliven a science lecture.
Sheffield was a celebrated genre writer in the 1980s, and a regular contributor to Analog/Asimov's. I remember liking his stuff much more in those days.
Sheffield was a celebrated genre writer in the 1980s, and a regular contributor to Analog/Asimov's. I remember liking his stuff much more in those days.
April 17, 2021
This is an epic SF story that is also a romance. It's ambitious, taking the protagonist into the near and far future courtesy of cryogenics. The world-building is entertaining: I enjoyed the depiction of future societies and changing conventions. How our hero prepares for life in an unknown future is well thought out, and how he adapts to changing circumstances keeps things lively. The main character's devotion to his wife and the gravity of writing makes me think this came from something very personal in Charles Sheffield's life.
Charles Sheffield is one of my favorite authors. If you like hard SF from Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven, you'll probably like Charles Sheffield.
Charles Sheffield is one of my favorite authors. If you like hard SF from Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven, you'll probably like Charles Sheffield.
March 18, 2021
It's a long haul to take a love story to the end of time—the book gets to be a little slow in the middle. But it is an amazing act of imagination. There are a few weaknesses of that imagination. For example, why does it take so long for anyone to make an obvious step to discover the nature of the alien invasion in that portion of the novel? But overall it's a pleasure for people interested in the biggest view, and the technical essay at the end gets to how God can be found in physics.
September 28, 2021
A superb book,starts off in the twentieth and twenty first century.The central character is kept on and off in the cryowombs while waiting for his true love to be revived as well.But due to his recklessness she cannot be the same woman.Millions of years pass and galaxy faces it's own challenges.He becomes the only hope for humanity.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2019
This was a very unique book. Sci Fi with a heavy emphasis on science. It's a book I read and kept thinking about long after I finished it. It's not an action book by any means, so don't expect typical space opera type battles and adventures.
November 2, 2021
Although Charles Sheffield is a scientist and, therefore, knows the facts about the age of the universe, it does not follow that we want to go through it all in one book. Too long, too much repetitive folderol, and a copout ending.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews