|
|
|
Author
Index
R |
Adam
Roberts |
|
Title
Index
S |
Salt |
|
|
|
|
| Year |
2000 |
| Publisher |
Victor
Gollancz
(Orion Books Ltd) |
| ISBN |
0575068973 |
|
|
|
Synopsis
|
Salt
is a crystal
compound of Sodium
and Chloride;
faceted and
transparent.
Simple and
pure. What
life could there
be without
salt? It is
known as God's
diamond, by which
we should be aware
of the infinite
variability of
scale for the
divine
perspective.
Every grain is a
landscape, a
world.
And us?
We are
fragile. We
dissolve in
immensity like
salt in water.
And after
thirty-seven years
of travel through
the vastness of
space we arrived
at the planet
Salt. And we
took Heaven and
Hell with us. |
|
|
|
Review
|
Told
by two people,
Petja and Barlei,
Salt is the story
of a planetary
colonisation that
slips into a
tragedy of
Biblical
proportions.
The two
communities who
went to Salt were
united by the
dream of a new
beginning and,
isolated in a
landscape of cruel
majesty, torn
apart by ancient
enmities.
Salt is a novel
of remarkable
power, intense
beauty and
profound insight.
In its evocation
of an alien world
it compares to
nothing less than
Dune. |
|
|
_______________________________________________________
 |
|
|
Credit:
NASA
|
|
The
Face of
Beauty
Few
sights in
the solar
system are
more
strikingly
beautiful
than
softly
hued
Saturn
embraced
by the
shadows of
its
stately
rings.
The gas
planet's
subtle
northward
gradation
from gold
to azure
is a
striking
visual
effect
that
scientists
don't
fully
understand.
The color
view above
was
created
using
blue,
green and
red
spectral
filters,
which
approximates
the scene
as it
would
appear to
the human
eye.
Current
thinking
says that
the color
gradations
may be
related to
seasonal
influences,
tied to
the cold
temperatures
in the
northern
(winter)
hemisphere.
Despite
Cassini's
revelations,
Saturn
remains a
world of
mystery.
Currently,
the rings'
shadows
shield the
mid-northern
latitudes
from the
harshest
of the
sun's
rays. As
Saturn
travels
around the
sun in its
29-year
orbit, the
shadows
will
narrow and
head
southward,
eventually
blanketing
the
opposite
hemisphere. |
|
NASA
Image of
the day
archive |
|
______________________________________________________
|
|
|
