The Neverness Cycle
4 primary works
Book 1
An epic masterwork of science fiction, Neverness is a stand-alone novel from one of the most important talents in the genre.
The universe of Neverness is intriguingly complex and filled with extraordinary beings. There are the Alaloi, whose genes have ‘backmutated’ so that they look like Neanderthals… the Order of Pilots, which reworks the laws of time and physics to slingshot its members through dense regions of ‘thickspace’… the Solid State Entity, a nebula-sized brain made up of moon-sized biocomputers…
Against this backdrop stands Mallory Ringer, the headstrong novitiate of the Order of Pilots, who, against all odds, navigates a maze of interspatial passageways to penetrate the Solid State Entity. There he makes a stunning discovery. A discovery that could unlock the secret of immortality hidden among the Alaloi.
Book 2
Book One of David Zindell’s epic trilogy set in Neverness, legendary City of Light, where inner space and outer space meet … where the god programme is up and running.
Into its maze of colour-coded streets of ice a wild boy stumbles, starving, frostbitten and grieving, a spear in his hand: Danlo the Wild, a messenger from the deep past of man. Brought up from Neverness by the Alaloi people, Neanderthal cave-dwellers, Danlo alone of his tribe has survived a plague – because he is not, as he thought, a misshaped Neanderthal, but human with immunity engineered into his genes. He learns that the disease was created by the sinister Architects of the Universal Cybernetic Church. The Architects possess a cure which can save other Alaloi tribes. But the Architects have migrated to the region of space known as the Vild, and there they are killing stars.
All of civilisation has converged on Neverness through the manifold of space travel. Beyond science, beyond decadence, sects and disciplines multiply there. Danlo, his mind shaped by the primitive man, brings to Neverness a single long-lost memory that will change them all.
Book 3
The awe-inspiring sequel to The Broken God
Danlo the Wild has started his quest into the stars, beyond the limits of the known universe to search for three things: his father, half god, half hero, Mallory Ringess; the lost city of Tannahill, home to the Architects; where he also hopes to discover the cure to the plague that is destroying his people.
Book 4
A triumphant close to The Requiem for Homo Sapiens - an epic tour de force that began with The Broken God and was followed by The Wild.
Danlo wi Soli Ringess now has the greatest mission of his life to complete. With Bertram Jaspari's evil Architects terrorising the universe with their killing star - the morrashar - and Hanuman's Ringists intent on converting the rest of humanity to the Way of Ringess, Danlo must somehow try to prevent War in Heaven.
Behind him travels an army of lightships, commanded by the ever-larger-than-life Bardo, falling from fixed-point to fixed-point throughout the deep, dark spaces of the Vild, ready to do battle, if they must, with the Ringists' fleet, lying in ambush for them beyond the Star of Neverness.
War in Heaven brings to a cataclysmic finale the most amazing and awe-inspiring journey in modern science fiction, combining the ultimate in space adventure with philosophy, mathematics, spirituality and superb characterization. It is truly the greatest romantic epic of modern sf.