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Universo Infinito
Gli esploratori dello spazio hanno un motto: "I pianeti sono fatti per essere abbandonati". In una galassia sconfinata e ancora sconosciuta, non c'è tempo per restare fermi in un porto, per cedere alle lusinghe di una casa o del tempo "reale". Meglio tuffarsi negli anni-luce, a bordo di indistruttibili navi di metallo, e aprire gli occhi sui mondi vergini che si affacciano dietro le stelle appena scoperte. Intorno al classico tema dell'avventura nel cosmo, Marion Zimmer Bradley - l'autrice delle Nebbie di Avalon e del ciclo del pianeta Darkover - ha scritto uno dei suoi romanzi più memorabili. Ricavata da un racconto già classico, "Endless Voyage", e pubblicata in edizione rilegata nel 1996, questa inquietante space opera è finalmente a disposizione del grande pubblico.
Copertina: Jacopo BRUNO
Copertina: Jacopo BRUNO
266 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
4 people are currently reading
293 people want to read
About the author
Marion Zimmer Bradley
800 books4,876 followersMarion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 24, 2012
Marion Zimmer Bradley is most famous for her Avalon fantasy books--which I don't care for, but I do love her Darkover science fiction. Even that is fantasy tinged though, featuring a clash between a technologically sophisticated space-faring civilization and a pseudo-medieval "lost colony" with a psychically talented aristocracy. So this collection of five connected stories is one of the few works of MZB that really is hard-science fiction, that falls into Space Opera. The basic premise is that there are "transmitters" that connect human colonies near-instantaneously across the galaxy. However, there's still a need for ships to explore space to find planets suitable for human habitation and set up those transmitters--and those ships are limited to relativistic sublight speeds. So for every year the "Explorers" spend in space, decades pass in ordinary space. Thus the first line and title of the first story: "Planets are for leaving." Home is the ship--Gypsy Moth. And there's another catch...
Now, yes, there are arguably better, or at least more famous books that use the time dilation of Einstein's theory to thought-provoking effect, such as Joe Haldeman's Forever War and Robert Heinlein's Time for the Stars or F.M. Busby's The Long View. Endless Universe isn't particularly thought-provoking nor stylistically remarkable. But it is an entertaining yarn I still remember decades after reading it as a teen.
Now, yes, there are arguably better, or at least more famous books that use the time dilation of Einstein's theory to thought-provoking effect, such as Joe Haldeman's Forever War and Robert Heinlein's Time for the Stars or F.M. Busby's The Long View. Endless Universe isn't particularly thought-provoking nor stylistically remarkable. But it is an entertaining yarn I still remember decades after reading it as a teen.
February 6, 2010
1st line: "Planets are for saying goodbye." Nice one.
Hooray, the journey through the random pulp novels finally turned up a good one!
This is just what I like in an SF novel; it takes a scientific idea and explores how it affects people.
The idea is this: we have invented a kind of teleporter that can instantly transport basically anything over many light years of distance. The problem, though, is that you can't transmit a transmitter, so in order to find new planets to colonize, there are ships of Explorers who travel close to light speed, bringing the transmitters to others can follow.
The result of this is that due to time dilation the Explorers only experience a few years of time while in the rest of the universe decades have passed. So, their ship becomes their whole world, and the crew is their family, and since the radiation of space makes them sterile, they have to adopt (or steal, or buy) babies to raise on the ship and continue the crew. Which makes the regular people very suspicious of them.
This was such an interesting and enjoyable book--I recommend it highly.
Hooray, the journey through the random pulp novels finally turned up a good one!
This is just what I like in an SF novel; it takes a scientific idea and explores how it affects people.
The idea is this: we have invented a kind of teleporter that can instantly transport basically anything over many light years of distance. The problem, though, is that you can't transmit a transmitter, so in order to find new planets to colonize, there are ships of Explorers who travel close to light speed, bringing the transmitters to others can follow.
The result of this is that due to time dilation the Explorers only experience a few years of time while in the rest of the universe decades have passed. So, their ship becomes their whole world, and the crew is their family, and since the radiation of space makes them sterile, they have to adopt (or steal, or buy) babies to raise on the ship and continue the crew. Which makes the regular people very suspicious of them.
This was such an interesting and enjoyable book--I recommend it highly.
March 2, 2023
The premise is good: Humans have invented a transporter which allows near-instantaneous travel between planets, but Explorers are still needed to find and open up new planets; this book follows a shipload of Explorers. However, the psychology of many little things don't always ring true, such as a doctor being adamant about immediately bringing children to the surface of an unexplored planet. The interpersonal relationships, in addition to seeming unrealistic at times, were not particularly interesting, perhaps because the main character is not particularly interesting. The scientific errors were bothersome enough to drop the rating at least half a star. (No, vacuum is not synonymous with absolute zero temperature.) And it bothered me that a character who had lost a hand was described, and treated as, "crippled," almost hopelessly so. Even after that character pretty much saves the day, it is still the loss of a hand that defines her.
March 5, 2022
2 stelle x lo sviluppo superficiale, 4 stelle x il concetto così affascinante
December 18, 2007
Endless Universe was a good enough read while it lasted. A rewrite of the previously published Endless Voyage, this features (according to the back cover) a greatly expanded text. ("Over 30,000 additional words!")
We follow a group of Explorers, the crew of a spaceship whose mission is to discover class M planets (to borrow a Trek term) for human colonization. The planets are terraformed as needed and then populated via a gateway that allows for instant travel between planets. The Explorers set up this instant travel gateway, but the catch is that before the gateway is set up on a planet, getting there is not at all instantaneous. As the Explorers travel between worlds, a year or two may go by on the ship -- but a hundred years or more go by for those living on planets. So, they only have each other. Anyone they meet on the surface is elderly or dead by the time they make another landing. This means they have developed their own culture, their own morals.
The ethics of modifying an endless series of planets for human habitation is only lightly treated -- I think we're supposed to assume that it's ok, as long as they're careful. Hmm.
The situation is complicated by the fact that cosmic radiation renders the Explorers sterile. To maintain a full crew complement, they are forced to, um, obtain children when they stop at various planets. Depending on the planet, this is welcomed -- or considered kidnapping. They take children from orphanages, which they say makes it all right. I was never at ease with this.
They also have another species on board their ship whose sole purpose is to nurture and raise the human children. Why they weren't raising their own children is beyond me, and I found this bizarre and not well accounted for. It felt uncomfortably close to some kind of slavery or servitude, since this species didn't seem to have any goals or interests of its own -- or at least, the Explorers weren't aware of any and didn't seem to care.
Lots of interesting setup, isn't it? The problem is there's not much story to flesh out all these elements. The Explorers bump around to a few planets, and after a series of Unfortunate Events, end up running with a skeleton crew. Oh, no! Will they be forced to decommission because they are short staffed? That's essentially the storyline. The main character, Gildoren, comes of age and we see him mature from a petulant teenager (I assume) into a responsible adult. But the transition didn't particularly excite me, and the twist at the end that determines his fate, and that of his crew, was predictable from a mile away. Ho-hum.
This was good to pass the time, and engaging enough as it went along, but it never really took off.
We follow a group of Explorers, the crew of a spaceship whose mission is to discover class M planets (to borrow a Trek term) for human colonization. The planets are terraformed as needed and then populated via a gateway that allows for instant travel between planets. The Explorers set up this instant travel gateway, but the catch is that before the gateway is set up on a planet, getting there is not at all instantaneous. As the Explorers travel between worlds, a year or two may go by on the ship -- but a hundred years or more go by for those living on planets. So, they only have each other. Anyone they meet on the surface is elderly or dead by the time they make another landing. This means they have developed their own culture, their own morals.
The ethics of modifying an endless series of planets for human habitation is only lightly treated -- I think we're supposed to assume that it's ok, as long as they're careful. Hmm.
The situation is complicated by the fact that cosmic radiation renders the Explorers sterile. To maintain a full crew complement, they are forced to, um, obtain children when they stop at various planets. Depending on the planet, this is welcomed -- or considered kidnapping. They take children from orphanages, which they say makes it all right. I was never at ease with this.
They also have another species on board their ship whose sole purpose is to nurture and raise the human children. Why they weren't raising their own children is beyond me, and I found this bizarre and not well accounted for. It felt uncomfortably close to some kind of slavery or servitude, since this species didn't seem to have any goals or interests of its own -- or at least, the Explorers weren't aware of any and didn't seem to care.
Lots of interesting setup, isn't it? The problem is there's not much story to flesh out all these elements. The Explorers bump around to a few planets, and after a series of Unfortunate Events, end up running with a skeleton crew. Oh, no! Will they be forced to decommission because they are short staffed? That's essentially the storyline. The main character, Gildoren, comes of age and we see him mature from a petulant teenager (I assume) into a responsible adult. But the transition didn't particularly excite me, and the twist at the end that determines his fate, and that of his crew, was predictable from a mile away. Ho-hum.
This was good to pass the time, and engaging enough as it went along, but it never really took off.
May 15, 2013
I love this idea Explorers going into space and finding planets and no thanks we won't stay - but thanks for your kids anyway!
Yes the Explores are seen as kidnappers, as pretty strange looking and acting and did I mention they can live hundreds of years in space which makes them just about immortal because of space travel time being much faster than planet time? They are outcasts and Explorers only have contact with others on their ship - and crew doesn't get exchanged ship to ship, so once your on a ship it's home. They can't have children of their own, hence the "kidnapping ". Children aren't really raised by the Explorers themselves - they are bought up by strange motherly Pooh Bear aliens.
Yes, I giggled lots at that alien name. They are as mysterious as they are motherly too.
This can be seen as one whole novel or many short stories going together - it follows Gildoran (every Explorer on the Gypsy Moth's name begins with Gil I think) . I began with Endless Voyage on Amazon kindle not knowing it had been expanded but I quickly got this one as I wanted more and I am glad I did because its worth it.
Yes the Explores are seen as kidnappers, as pretty strange looking and acting and did I mention they can live hundreds of years in space which makes them just about immortal because of space travel time being much faster than planet time? They are outcasts and Explorers only have contact with others on their ship - and crew doesn't get exchanged ship to ship, so once your on a ship it's home. They can't have children of their own, hence the "kidnapping ". Children aren't really raised by the Explorers themselves - they are bought up by strange motherly Pooh Bear aliens.
Yes, I giggled lots at that alien name. They are as mysterious as they are motherly too.
This can be seen as one whole novel or many short stories going together - it follows Gildoran (every Explorer on the Gypsy Moth's name begins with Gil I think) . I began with Endless Voyage on Amazon kindle not knowing it had been expanded but I quickly got this one as I wanted more and I am glad I did because its worth it.
March 11, 2010
Man, talk about coming back to the right book at just the right time. I started this one over a year ago and set it aside. And when I picked it up again the other day, it was just...hey, howareya? Maybe it was because the main character was feeling foolish about being sentimental. And I was feeling foolish about feeling sentimental. And so we just made the perfect coupling.
Never mind the many times I wanted to grab him by the hair and shove his face into a wall. It was in a good way. If I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have wanted to do that. It's tough to explain. But that, combined with the sentimental sympathizing was worth a complete star.
Never mind the many times I wanted to grab him by the hair and shove his face into a wall. It was in a good way. If I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have wanted to do that. It's tough to explain. But that, combined with the sentimental sympathizing was worth a complete star.
June 3, 2011
Baby-stealing space nomads? Yes please. This book focuses around a ship who set up planets that are habitable for humans, basically adding them to a system of teleporters that allow for quick travel. It focuses around the woes of their old-fashioned space travel and working on potentially dangerous planets. One of the earlier sci-fi books that I read, and I loved it at the time. While I have a feeling it may have lost some of it's shine if I went back and read it, I was pretty in love with it at the time.
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February 14, 2012Classic SF. PB 341 pages. This is a fix-up novel of five related stories and novellas about a group of Explorers who are some of the few in the universe who still have the drive to explore and who set up the teleportation devices everyone else uses. But space travel sterilizes them so they must purchase babies to raise as their own. It’s interesting that the stories are action/adventure tales of survival on planets with weird vegetation and such that tries to kill them, but has a rich background and well-thought out psychology of the explorers.
October 26, 2014
This book was a very positive surprise.
The topic of a space ship looking for new worlds doesn't sound very interesting, but it is very well written and has a much more urgent and serious touch to it than some predecessors.
There are some issues with continuity and logic in the story, some of which come from the fact that it was a shorter story, which had been rewritten. But if you don't mind that, then it will be a very entertaining read.
The topic of a space ship looking for new worlds doesn't sound very interesting, but it is very well written and has a much more urgent and serious touch to it than some predecessors.
There are some issues with continuity and logic in the story, some of which come from the fact that it was a shorter story, which had been rewritten. But if you don't mind that, then it will be a very entertaining read.
December 11, 2013
A collection of 5 short stories about Explorers, men and women who travel space searching for new planets to build Transmitters on so that others can expand the galactic human empire. I enjoyed these tales, even though the main character seems like he's kind of a dick, he does grow as a person throughout. A fun read if you're looking for some light science fiction fare.
May 3, 2008
I just love space travel and sci-fi, I've discovered. this book is fantastic. interesting as hell. probably mainly because I don't read a whole lot and this made my brain go crazy!
November 2, 2008
There wasn't really anything bad about this book, but at the same time nothing really memorable. It's just kind of …there.
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September 19, 2009Endless Universe by Zimmer Bradley Bradley (1979)
June 23, 2016
in the vein of classic sci fi, well executed. great example of the style. not the genre's best book, but among the good ones.
November 22, 2008
Different - about people who spend their entire lives in space, looking for habitable planets.
June 13, 2018
There's a lot that is good here. Very quickly the reader understands the new world that has been created for them and the characters role in it. There are good Sci-fi concepts here, from the start collecting babies to the end when the characters own technology becomes obsolete. The downside, in my opinion, is the emotional 'what iffery' but this did help the progression of the story, so it's a balance.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews