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Saga of the Skolian Empire
The Spacetime Pool
From the Kindle description of the book:
Three short works from Catherine Asaro, author of the Skolian Empire series. Includes Nebula award-winning novella "The Spacetime Pool", novelette "Light and Shadow", and an essay: "A Poetry of Angles and Dreams".
Three short works from Catherine Asaro, author of the Skolian Empire series. Includes Nebula award-winning novella "The Spacetime Pool", novelette "Light and Shadow", and an essay: "A Poetry of Angles and Dreams".
136 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2008
68 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Asaro
92 books697 followersThe author of more than twenty-five books, Catherine Asaro is acclaimed for her Ruby Dynasty series, which combines adventure, science, romance and fast-paced action. Her novel The Quantum Rose won the Nebula® Award, as did her novella “The Spacetime Pool.” Among her many other distinctions, she is a multiple winner of the AnLab from Analog magazine and a three time recipient of the RT BOOKClub Award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.” Her most recent novel, Carnelians, came out in October, 2011. An anthology of her short fiction titled Aurora in Four Voices is available from ISFiC Press in hardcover, and her multiple award-winning novella “The City of Cries” is also available as an eBook for Kindle and Nook.
Catherine has two music CD’s out and she is currently working on her third. The first, Diamond Star, is the soundtrack for her novel of the same name, performed with the rock band, Point Valid. She appears as a vocalist at cons, clubs, and other venues in the US and abroad, including recently as the Guest of Honor at the Denmark and New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions. She performs selections from her work in a multimedia project that mixes literature, dance, and music with Greg Adams as her accompanist. She is also a theoretical physicist with a PhD in Chemical Physics from Harvard, and a jazz and ballet dancer. Visit her at www.facebook.com/Catherine.Asaro
Catherine has two music CD’s out and she is currently working on her third. The first, Diamond Star, is the soundtrack for her novel of the same name, performed with the rock band, Point Valid. She appears as a vocalist at cons, clubs, and other venues in the US and abroad, including recently as the Guest of Honor at the Denmark and New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions. She performs selections from her work in a multimedia project that mixes literature, dance, and music with Greg Adams as her accompanist. She is also a theoretical physicist with a PhD in Chemical Physics from Harvard, and a jazz and ballet dancer. Visit her at www.facebook.com/Catherine.Asaro
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 3, 2016
The Spacetime Pool - Catherine Asaro
SF; 8/10
I enjoyed this story about a modern mathematician who gets pulled through a gate to an alternative dimension. She soon finds herself the object of a prophecy concerning two warring brothers, running for her life and caught up in a mystery about the history of this new world. For all it sounds like fantasy, this is actually a science fiction story (with the maths and physics to back up that assertion) and once again Asaro creates a fascinating reality where things are not what they seem on the surface. It's a good little story and worth reading, although at the end I was most left wondering if she'll ever write the (at least) two very obvious other tales that need to be written to explain the mysteries she presented to her readers.
SF; 8/10
I enjoyed this story about a modern mathematician who gets pulled through a gate to an alternative dimension. She soon finds herself the object of a prophecy concerning two warring brothers, running for her life and caught up in a mystery about the history of this new world. For all it sounds like fantasy, this is actually a science fiction story (with the maths and physics to back up that assertion) and once again Asaro creates a fascinating reality where things are not what they seem on the surface. It's a good little story and worth reading, although at the end I was most left wondering if she'll ever write the (at least) two very obvious other tales that need to be written to explain the mysteries she presented to her readers.
January 23, 2025
Okay, so the writing and short stories are closer to 3* than 4, but I had to give the extra just for the excellent mathematics and theoretical physics integration into the story, and the note at the end about Fourier Transforms.
October 16, 2017
I loved how Catherine intertwined the math and physics within a beautiful and poignant story about alternative realities for Earth related to the multi-universe theory. There were times I sat in my car before going inside because I couldn't stop listening.
June 7, 2015
Only Catherine Asaro can meld elements of old school romance and hard core scifi so seamlessly into a modern meets old, unique blend. Honestly I've never enjoyed math so much.
April 17, 2023
This contains a Nebula award winning novella about a mathematician who finds herself whisked away into an alternate universe that is very different from our own, and she has to use mathematics and a bit of luck to survive. I really liked this story, although it took me a minute to get into it. I didn't understand some of the mathematics (Asaro has a PhD in Physics from Harvard, so she knows her stuff) but I figured out enough of what she was saying about how the alternate universes worked to figure out where the story was going. I could have seen this expanding into a larger work or additional works in this universe, because she does some good world building as well.
This volume also included her first short story, the first work in the Skolian universe. She states that she wrote this in thinking about the mathematics of FTL travel, and how to make it work (and even ended up publishing a paper on this using the mathematics that informed the story). A quick and fun read. I've read Primary Inversion, the first novel in the Skolian universe, and I own a few more. This story reminded me that I should pick those books up some day soon.
This volume also included her first short story, the first work in the Skolian universe. She states that she wrote this in thinking about the mathematics of FTL travel, and how to make it work (and even ended up publishing a paper on this using the mathematics that informed the story). A quick and fun read. I've read Primary Inversion, the first novel in the Skolian universe, and I own a few more. This story reminded me that I should pick those books up some day soon.
June 10, 2020
I hesitated to buy this because part of it is an essay on math. Polymathic author Asaro has won impressive success by combining several fields of the arts and sciences. Having said that, I would not have nominated the title story "The Spacetime Pool" for a Nebula, much less predicted it would win. A standard plot with no character arcs. My lasting image from "The Spacetime Pool" is the heroine hung dangling by her wrists, frantically doing math.
The best thing in the book is the novelette "Light and Shadow," which brings Kelric and his spaceship's computer to life. If this isn't the root of the Skolian Empire, it's close to it.
I very quickly skimmed the essay on math, enough to see that there was nothing I could relate to except Asaro's enthusiasm.
The best thing in the book is the novelette "Light and Shadow," which brings Kelric and his spaceship's computer to life. If this isn't the root of the Skolian Empire, it's close to it.
I very quickly skimmed the essay on math, enough to see that there was nothing I could relate to except Asaro's enthusiasm.
April 21, 2020
Actually two short stories and an essay. The first is about a woman being dragged into an alternate reality where she is destined to be fight over by an emperor and his twin brother. This felt like a beginning and I wanted to see it continued. Alas, we move on to a story about Kelric from the Skolian Saga and one of his more dramatic test pilot flights.
Read
February 8, 20152 stories and one "math poem"
"The Spacetime Pool" 6/4/2014 I forgot this was included in Aurora in Four Voices, so I started reading it again in July2014 and had to finish it (again ^_^ )
"Light & Shadow" 6/2/2014
"A Poetry of Angles and Dreams"
"The Spacetime Pool" 6/4/2014 I forgot this was included in Aurora in Four Voices, so I started reading it again in July2014 and had to finish it (again ^_^ )
"Light & Shadow" 6/2/2014
"A Poetry of Angles and Dreams"
April 4, 2023
Good story, Poor ending
The story had an interesting premise, but the construction is choppy in places and somewhat disjointed. The ending of the story is rather abrupt and unsatisfying.
The story had an interesting premise, but the construction is choppy in places and somewhat disjointed. The ending of the story is rather abrupt and unsatisfying.
August 27, 2025
The first story, The Spacetime Pool, won a Nebula Award in 2008 (as a shorter piece), and its hard to imagine ... from the start. "The rhododendron bushes on the hillside where she sat undulated in the breezes like a dark ocean frothed with purple flowers ... " Wow. That seems like a high-school writing exercise.
Its a bodice-ripper rife with abduction, force, dueling brothers, false prophecy ... and a few irrelevant equations augmenting the faerie-world magical entrance.
Even the intro makes no sense - a recent college grad wears a "flimsy dress" while walking alone in the woods, and "she had left her purse and cell phone in the car, taking nothing more than the her keys." So in 2008, the MC doesn't know women are vulnerable alone in the wild '30 minutes from the car' and under-dressed for the weather and with no accommodation for outdoor activity? Someone has sent a search party for her before, and she STILL doesn't take her phone? "Seeking an escape from her hectic life" - recent college grad, no family, no job ... what exactly is hectic? And she doesn't know how to turn off the notifications/ringers? Wow, MIT was really churning out the geniuses, huh.
And this won a NEBULA?
It gets worse. Apparently in the two years since the MC's family was blown to bits by a car bomb, she finished a math degree at MIT. Right, she 'misses' them, but the grief took what, a week? She finished a degree at one of the most competitive schools in the country without missing a beat. Hmm?
OMG this is the worst pulp. Send a 6'6" man with a large knife to look for a strange woman and 'mean no harm'? So why isn't she SCREAMING for safety?
Its just laughable. College educated, in an alternate universe, already lived in multiple countries in her own universe, so she knows first-hand how terms and customs can be totally different in different cultures. This universe has different language and rules, and marauders - but the idiot MC doesn't even ASK what marrying her abductor will entail?
Wow, this is more John Norman and Gor than award-worthy SF. Yep, the author wrote a paper character "Her only talents were writing proofs and solving equations." Really? She's not even competent as a human? She can't, say, make friends, throw a ball, or sew a button on? >shudder<
How does this keep getting worse? The MC has heard exactly two names in the new dimension, Maximilian and Dominick, and "their names sounded Mediterranean, Arabic, or Near Eastern [sic]" What names? The brothers' names are Latin.
And...MC is a frigid virgin? A college grad in a male-dominated field, and she's ... innocent? How 1890s! And oh look, somehow North America in this alternate universe has opals aplenty. Why should the author let geology impede her designs? Its another universe, with the same land masses, but why would that constrain her?!
Second story "Light and Shadow" (c) April 1994.
Starts with potential, inserts math to appear valid, but takes it to such absurd extremes it comes across as pulp. The 'story' is too thin, the most interesting character is the ship, with the MC being a cowboy-astronaut unsuccessfully grieving his wife's death. (The reader never learns their story or the details of the death, its just a prop.) The extrapolations are not well thought out, the biological limits magically circumvented, the ship fixes EVERYTHING, and the story just ends.
Third piece - Essay/lecture on some of the math supposedly behind the two stories. But the author ignores the reality that being unable to (currently) calculate an extreme limit does NOT mean the limit doesn't exist.
There are so many tech holes and ethical quagmires in these two stories, they could have provided interesting content if explored, but instead they're just recycled cliche pops. NFM.
Its a bodice-ripper rife with abduction, force, dueling brothers, false prophecy ... and a few irrelevant equations augmenting the faerie-world magical entrance.
Even the intro makes no sense - a recent college grad wears a "flimsy dress" while walking alone in the woods, and "she had left her purse and cell phone in the car, taking nothing more than the her keys." So in 2008, the MC doesn't know women are vulnerable alone in the wild '30 minutes from the car' and under-dressed for the weather and with no accommodation for outdoor activity? Someone has sent a search party for her before, and she STILL doesn't take her phone? "Seeking an escape from her hectic life" - recent college grad, no family, no job ... what exactly is hectic? And she doesn't know how to turn off the notifications/ringers? Wow, MIT was really churning out the geniuses, huh.
And this won a NEBULA?
It gets worse. Apparently in the two years since the MC's family was blown to bits by a car bomb, she finished a math degree at MIT. Right, she 'misses' them, but the grief took what, a week? She finished a degree at one of the most competitive schools in the country without missing a beat. Hmm?
OMG this is the worst pulp. Send a 6'6" man with a large knife to look for a strange woman and 'mean no harm'? So why isn't she SCREAMING for safety?
Its just laughable. College educated, in an alternate universe, already lived in multiple countries in her own universe, so she knows first-hand how terms and customs can be totally different in different cultures. This universe has different language and rules, and marauders - but the idiot MC doesn't even ASK what marrying her abductor will entail?
Wow, this is more John Norman and Gor than award-worthy SF. Yep, the author wrote a paper character "Her only talents were writing proofs and solving equations." Really? She's not even competent as a human? She can't, say, make friends, throw a ball, or sew a button on? >shudder<
How does this keep getting worse? The MC has heard exactly two names in the new dimension, Maximilian and Dominick, and "their names sounded Mediterranean, Arabic, or Near Eastern [sic]" What names? The brothers' names are Latin.
And...MC is a frigid virgin? A college grad in a male-dominated field, and she's ... innocent? How 1890s! And oh look, somehow North America in this alternate universe has opals aplenty. Why should the author let geology impede her designs? Its another universe, with the same land masses, but why would that constrain her?!
Second story "Light and Shadow" (c) April 1994.
Starts with potential, inserts math to appear valid, but takes it to such absurd extremes it comes across as pulp. The 'story' is too thin, the most interesting character is the ship, with the MC being a cowboy-astronaut unsuccessfully grieving his wife's death. (The reader never learns their story or the details of the death, its just a prop.) The extrapolations are not well thought out, the biological limits magically circumvented, the ship fixes EVERYTHING, and the story just ends.
Third piece - Essay/lecture on some of the math supposedly behind the two stories. But the author ignores the reality that being unable to (currently) calculate an extreme limit does NOT mean the limit doesn't exist.
There are so many tech holes and ethical quagmires in these two stories, they could have provided interesting content if explored, but instead they're just recycled cliche pops. NFM.
April 19, 2023
This is an enjoyable story. That being said, it isn't without warts. I'm scratching my head over it being awarded a Nebula for best novella. It must have been based more on its concept than its writing. Its Barbara Cartlandesque fantasy/hard science admix is interesting, nonetheless. Characters are mostly cardboard, even our intrepid Janelle. About 50% Harlequin romance and 50% scientific mystery. I might have felt short-changed if this were a novel--or maybe what it really needed was to be more fleshed out to overcome a slightly rushed and choppy storyline. The exploration of some of the mathematical concepts somehow managed to hold things together and remind me that this was science fiction, after all.
July 9, 2025
It's good to know writers can be as big a set of idiots as can fans. This story won a Nebula? I was simplistic, childish, and just used an already ancient trope of someone dragged to an alternate universe. The bit of hard science didn't save it. What saves an average was Light and Shadow, her first published story. It's also an introduction to the Skolian Empire series. It's a bit to Emo but not bad. Kelric, the famous one, has too much angst and is a test pilot.
March 24, 2024
math and science fiction
The stories were good but they ended too soon. Enjoyed the math tie-ins. The world building was very interesting. The first story could be a great novel. A refreshing read
The stories were good but they ended too soon. Enjoyed the math tie-ins. The world building was very interesting. The first story could be a great novel. A refreshing read
June 7, 2024
math and science fiction
The stories were good but they ended too soon. Enjoyed the math tie-ins. The world building was very interesting. The first story could be a great novel. A refreshing read
The stories were good but they ended too soon. Enjoyed the math tie-ins. The world building was very interesting. The first story could be a great novel. A refreshing read
October 13, 2024
I first read this several years ago, and it was just as good to read the second time around. Once again Catherine Asaro has created a rich universe full of detail and intrigue. Cannot wait to see where she takes this idea, I would love a full length novel!
June 22, 2019
There's a clever mathematical idea here, but the adventure part read almost like a parody. The least effective of the Nebula-prize-winning novellas I've been sampling.
January 22, 2024
Very enjoyable. The main novella starts out like a bodice ripper, but then goes some very interesting places. Kept me up late to finish.
March 30, 2024
It's not you, it's me. Was far more of a romance than sci-fi.
August 29, 2012
the first story was good looking girl kidnapped by a tall dark handsome barbarian and taken to another universe. yuck. there were some interesting ideas but the plot line was awful. I liked the second story as it was about the skolian empire. it was too short. the thirst was an essay about math. I haven't used my brain that way in a long time. most of the essay went right over my head.
May 14, 2023
Spacetime Pool (novella) - Starts with a bang and maintains tension. I was especially impressed with the escape sequence--go Janel!
Light & Shadow (short story) - the first Kelric story of him as a test pilot. I found it interesting how this early incarnation of the character is shorn of all royal trappings without actually contradicting the books.
Light & Shadow (short story) - the first Kelric story of him as a test pilot. I found it interesting how this early incarnation of the character is shorn of all royal trappings without actually contradicting the books.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews