Wheelers

by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen

Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen - internationally popular scientists - present a richly-imagined novel of high adventure and earthshaking concepts, in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Bear Twenty-third-century civilisation is recovering from a decades-long anti-technology freeze that has left the world underpopulated, the Moon and asteroids controlled by a Tibetan Zen Buddhist sect from a deep-space habitat, and interplanetary exploration in the hands of a few eccentric outcasts. One such loner - Prudence Odingo - returns to Earth to report that she has recovered 100,00-year-old wheeled artifacts, from under the ice of Callisto, a moon of Jupiter. She is arrested, and about to be convicted on criminal fraud when the 'wheelers' abruptly come to life - and several of Jupiter's moons change their orbits, ready to propel a vast planet-destroying comet towards Earth. The unimaginable and incredibly powerful creatures that live in Jupiter's hellish atmosphere have apparently declared war on humanity. Prudence must somehow discover why - with the help of her Zen Buddhist friends, and the archenemy pedant who once destroyed her career.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Ian Nicholas Stewart is an Emeritus Professor and Digital Media Fellow in the Mathematics Department at Warwick University, with special responsibility for public awareness of mathematics and science. He is best known for his popular science writing on mathematical themes.
--from the author's website

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See other authors with similar names.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good SF first-contact novel, with some first-novel rough spots. Both authors are accomplished British scientists, and there are some truly mind-boggling moments in the book. The prose is flat and transparent, but we hard-SF fans are willing to put up with a fair amount of so-so prose to get to the Big Ideas. Some of the dramatic moments are pretty contrived. The payoff was well-worth some literary clumsiness. And the ending! Nice, surprising twists. It becomes positively Stapledonian. Holding up well, 20 years on. Recommended for space opera and hard-SF fans. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Here’s the Gerald Jonas review that led me to read WHEELERS back in 2001: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...

[Bookbrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books starts off very slow and builds from there, the science is amazing along with a good story. Well thought out aliens.

[Madhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could I would rate this book as one the greatest books of all time. Reading truly was a profound experience!!
Why? - Because all facts in the book are logical progressions of what we know. Fiction even though make believe should I think be built on some facts which this book completely fulfills for me.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good book of alien contact within our solar system. It does a superb job of describing very plausible alien life forms and how contact with them might happen. I found the science and the description of the colonization of the solar system to be very convincing. There is a lot of food for thought here in the speculation of how life has evolved, both on our planet and in the universe. Highly recommended.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great "hard SF" that is intelligent, thought-provoking, farflung scifi novel about saving the world from imminent catastrophe. contains advanced mathematical and scientific concepts, and a very creative and unusual plot! Takes place in the near future but covers eons.

[Pamr · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when two brilliant scientists write a Science Fiction novel. The answer is normally somthing mediocre at best,but in this case something amazing happened a brilliant book - perhaps too realistic for some and not real enough sci fi for others.

It was worth every ounce of brain power I put in to keep up with the concepts but the important thing was I rooted for the main charachter all the way through

A waring about this review - I may look at this book through rose tinted lenses because I bought it from the long gone best ever specailst book shop - Andromeda in Birmingham (UK)- back when online shopping was a novelty and bookshops had two shelves of Science Fiction one of which was bad TV/ Movie spin off novels.

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book begins with a long, almost biblical account of an event that isn't properly explained until much later. As if that's not confusing enough, the leading man then [correctly] says that the account is false, and [therefore] chastizes the leading woman for badly translating script found on a newly discovered Egyptian relic ...while she bemoans the fact that she's attracted to his hair and eyes ...and he says she has skills and integrity.

If you're willing to read beyond that unconvincing and otherwise worrying first chapter, and endure the 2 or 3 over-long 'explanatory' passages which needlessly interfere with the otherwise steady pace of the book, you will be introduced to some incredible alien worlds
~
hopefully a reprint [of the 2002 edition] will involve a careful trimming of the most unwieldy bits of text, will leave no trace of an 'apology' for including a black heroine, and (later in the book) will refrain from 1: repeatedly calling her nephew ugly, & 2: suggesting, more than once, that her nephew's distrust of people is due to the horrific ordeals he was subjected to while growing up ...especially as it was previously 'established' that one of his innate empathic abilities is recognizing when people are being dishonest.

NB: although the authors seemed very determined to dehumanize the boy at every turn [even while he was trying to save the Earth] he is eventually permitted a presumably happy future working with his gutsy aunt ~ if only the 'unavoidably' vulgar aspects of the story were so subtle.

[Eric Lawton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting science fiction ideas but this is written with several story threads that converge at the end. Unfortunately, although some of the threads are worth four stars, others are worth only one. I'm guessing that this is because there are two authors and one is much better than the other.
Although I did finish reading it several years ago, I gave up on this attempt at re-reading because the bad writing didn't outweigh the urge to find out what happened, since I still remembered the rough idea.

[Braedyn Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s nothing I can say to explain this book to anyone. I barely even understand it myself.

This was a messy spew of well thought out intense hard scifi interlocked with some absolutely beautiful emotional scenes. Somehow, in the midst of terribly long scientific exposition, a never ending, forever increasing cast of characters, and generally all over the place storyline, I found a deep love for this weird ass mindfuck of a book. Does it break a lot of “writing rules”? Yes. Is it still fantastic and well developed? Also yes. I loved the character progression of people like Charlie, prudence, and Moses. I found myself close to tears quite a few times, even in the distant perspective of third person omniscient.

A few disclaimers. If you do not like hard scifi, I don’t think this book is for you. It confused me, an engineer and space nerd, quite a lot. However, the science was extremely well thought out and expanded upon many known astrobiological theories such as panspermia, while including an insane twist at the end that would stun the most imaginative alien enthusiasts.

Another disclaimer: unexpectedly, a lot of this book is comedy. It’s great comedy, though. Commentary on political and social issues carried much of the less action filled parts of this book, and I have to say it’s still topical in 2025 even though the book was published in 2000. I found myself smiling and shaking my head a lot.

Once again, this book is brilliant. Please read if it sounds like something you’d like.

[Cliff · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best sf novels I've read for quite a while. Basically, the story concerns an enormous comet which is going to collide with Earth and probably cause an extinction event. The meat if the story is a first contact, between Jovians and humans. Both cultures are entirely different and understanding is virtually impossible. The Jovians are able to live in the corrosive, to humans, upper reaches if the atmosphere of Jupiter. They call Earth Poisonblue and, of course, nobody can inhabit a world where the atmosphere consists of oxygen and nitrogen and where, horrors of horrors, there is actually liquid water. Slowly, however, the two races of sentients begin to understand each other. The Jovians are not bug eyed monsters bent on domination and there are no massive space battles the book is about how an alien race might be so different to ours and how, with goodwill, understanding might be achieved. There is conflict all is not sweetness and light, but those conflicts are between factions and individuals within the races. There is humour, particularly as the Jovians are very long lived, and estimate as individuals for long periods of time. Their committee meetings can last years, if not centuries. There have to be 'agenda trees' so business can be kept track of. Read this if you like sci fi.

[David Wingert · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Ian Stewart’s “Wheelers”, nobody believes a disgraced archeologist turned space runner’s claim that she has found ancient, wheeled machines on Jupiter’s moon, Calypso. That is until it comes to life. As the moons of Jupiter begin to realign themselves, humanity discovers there is intelligent life in Jupiter’s atmosphere and they are purposely moving the moons so that a comet which would have otherwise hit Jupiter, will now impact the earth. Just like they did in the age of the dinosaurs. The novel starts slow, then steadily builds in action. It gives a logical view of how humans would expand into the solar system and how life could live in the clouds of Jupiter. Overall, I did enjoy it.

[David Wingert · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Ian Stewart’s “Wheelers”, nobody believes a disgraced archeologist turned space runner’s claim that she has found ancient, wheeled machines on Jupiter’s moon, Calypso. That is until it comes to life. As the moons of Jupiter begin to realign themselves, humanity discovers there is intelligent life in Jupiter’s atmosphere and they are purposely moving the moons so that a comet which would have otherwise hit Jupiter, will now impact the earth. Just like they did in the age of the dinosaurs. The novel starts slow, then steadily builds in action. It gives a logical view of how humans would expand into the solar system and how life could live in the clouds of Jupiter. Overall, I did enjoy it.

[Nigel McFarlane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable and epic adventure story with some serious exo-biology. As you would expect from anything co-written by the late great Jack Cohen, the aliens here are proper aliens, with proper alien biology. No vertebrate knees and elbows here; these aliens are Jovian gas bags with a weird life-cycle and 100-million-year longevity.

My only complaint is that the effort put into the aliens' physical biology is let down by the lack of novelty in their thinking and their society. Given their strange environment and biology, they seem a bit too easily relatable.

[Britt K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Loved the beginning, the character building and background stories. But then the book becomes a joke. As soon as the floating wheels started speaking “wheelerese” I was 100% out. And you can tell which author wrote what - breaks up the flow.

[Jon Pennycook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this when I started, but I found it difficult to stop reading. There's a lot going on. Some of it seemed a bit daft, but not terribly so.

[Arunas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good world building

Characters are a bit flat and the story sometimes gets sluggish. Overall, good writing and ingenious word building. Definitely worth reading.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting worldbuilding undermined by clunky prose and poor pacing. This story could have been half the length!

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For two academic scientists this is a good first go at writing fiction.
Jack Cohen has been imagining truly alien lifeforms for many years, go back to The Legacy of Heorot for his first name check and written in character. So it's great to see his own original work.
Conceptually their ideas are as good as Robert L. Forward, but poor on the cliched characters and how they are represented. This really detracted from the first half of the book, though it was worth persisting with overall. I think if they'd credited the read with the intelligence and imagination to grasp their alien concepts, then they could have similarly not been so simplistic on the characters themselves.
As other reviewers have noted, having truly original aliens with a well thought out science and perspective on the Universe of their own is refreshing and a decent step away from typical anthropocentricity found in far too many goods from otherwise good writers.
Overall a good read

[j0n · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven writing, possibly due to the presence of two authors, but a nonetheless enjoyable bit of light hard sci-fi. There are parts of brilliance in its take on biology and future human history that make up for the occasional cringeworthy prose. Some of the sci-fi ideas seem a bit of a retread of the likes of Clarke, Niven, etc., but if you're a fan of those sorts of authors you'll probably at least enjoy this, if not be blown away by it.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

intelligent, thought-provoking, farflung scifi novel about -- what else? -- saving the world from imminent catastrophe. contains advanced mathematical and scientific concepts, and a very creative and unusual plot, which make it fun to read. the characters are a bit one dimensional, or, where more complex, then with a feeling of being intentionally so.

[Lyle Blosser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful mix of alien culture, epic universal history, end-of-the-world danger, and of humans (and aliens) rising above the status-quo to transcend political self-interest for the greater good. Well-developed characters and exquisite descriptive prose, especially concerning the Jovians and their realms.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant!

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good sci fi read.

[P Fosten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read 2 chapters, bored the pants off me. Done. Next book.

[D. Meador · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit drawn out in places, count have been done just as well in one hundred fewer pages. Nonetheless, it was a good summer read.

[bluetyson]

isbn,original

[Cynthisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my old paper Book Log: "Highly original hard SF, w/ great character development too!"