This reminded me of a character, Martin Silenus from Hyperion Cantos, who has a mansion. In that mansion all of the doors are actually portals. So when you walk into a new room you’re walking into a new room on a different world. So like your living room is on Earth but your dining room could be on the moon. Always thought that was a cool idea.
I loved the concept of Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth saga. People invent wormhole technology. Interstellar colonization is done by opening wormholes directly to alien worlds. Except the tech isn’t cheap or easy. IIRC they described an interstellar generator as made of half a cubic kilometer of intricate machinery. They’re giant machines that can open portals to distant star systems.
Because of the immense expense, they need to make maximum use of these gateways. The generators operate on regular schedules, connecting to different worlds in the human sphere of colonization. And to make maximum use of the gateways…they run trains through them. You travel to a distant star system by buying a train ticket.
Yeah I recommend. The chief antagonist of the series, Morning Light Mountain, is one of the best examples of a truly “alien” alien that I’ve read in sci fi. It’s about as far from the trope that aliens are just humans with crap glued to their foreheads, or stand-ins for various real-world human cultures, as you can get.
This reminded me of a character, Martin Silenus from Hyperion Cantos, who has a mansion. In that mansion all of the doors are actually portals. So when you walk into a new room you’re walking into a new room on a different world. So like your living room is on Earth but your dining room could be on the moon. Always thought that was a cool idea.
I loved the concept of Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth saga. People invent wormhole technology. Interstellar colonization is done by opening wormholes directly to alien worlds. Except the tech isn’t cheap or easy. IIRC they described an interstellar generator as made of half a cubic kilometer of intricate machinery. They’re giant machines that can open portals to distant star systems.
Because of the immense expense, they need to make maximum use of these gateways. The generators operate on regular schedules, connecting to different worlds in the human sphere of colonization. And to make maximum use of the gateways…they run trains through them. You travel to a distant star system by buying a train ticket.
Nice, adding that book to the list.
Yeah I recommend. The chief antagonist of the series, Morning Light Mountain, is one of the best examples of a truly “alien” alien that I’ve read in sci fi. It’s about as far from the trope that aliens are just humans with crap glued to their foreheads, or stand-ins for various real-world human cultures, as you can get.
It’s fun and games until the portals turn off and you’re stuck in your house… Or on your toilet in the middle of an ocean.