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The Push
Neil Hanson answers a call to return to Reich, a colony world he helped to establish many, many years ago and never intended to see again; a world haunted by painful memories and now threatened by a secret from his past which even he didn't know was there. Hanson is faced with an impossible challenge and seems destined to be either the young world's saviour… or its destroyer.
- GenresScience Fiction
95 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
41 people want to read
About the author
Dave Hutchinson
54 books235 followersUK writer who published four volumes of stories by the age of twenty-one – Thumbprints, which is mostly fantasy, Fools' Gold, Torn Air and The Paradise Equation, all as David Hutchinson – and then moved into journalism. The deftness and quiet humaneness of his work was better than precocious, though the deracinatedness of the worlds depicted in the later stories may have derived in part from the author's apparent isolation from normal publishing channels.
After a decade of nonfiction, Hutchinson returned to the field as Dave Hutchinson, assembling later work in As the Crow Flies; tales like "The Pavement Artist" use sf devices to represent, far more fully than in his early work, a sense of the world as inherently and tragically not a platform for Transcendence. His first novel, The Villages, is Fantasy; The Push, an sf tale set in the Human Space sector of the home galaxy, describes the inception of Faster Than Light travel and some consequent complications when expanding humanity settles on a planet full of Alien life. Europe in Autumn (2014), an sf thriller involving espionage, takes place in a highly fragmented and still fragmenting Near-Future Europe, one of whose sovereign mini-nations is a transcontinental railway line; over the course of the central plot – which seems to reflect some aspects of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 – the protagonist becomes involved in the Paranoia-inducing Les Coureurs des Bois, a mysterious postal service which also delivers humans across innumerable borders.
- See more at: http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hutc...
Works
* The Villages (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Cosmos Books, 2001)
* Europe in Autumn (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Rebellion/Solaris, 2014)
Collections and Stories
* Thumbprints (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Fools' Gold (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Torn Air (London: Abelard, 1980)
* The Paradise Equation (London: Abelard, 1981)
* As the Crow Flies (Wigan, Lancashire: BeWrite Books, 2004)
* The Push (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2009)
After a decade of nonfiction, Hutchinson returned to the field as Dave Hutchinson, assembling later work in As the Crow Flies; tales like "The Pavement Artist" use sf devices to represent, far more fully than in his early work, a sense of the world as inherently and tragically not a platform for Transcendence. His first novel, The Villages, is Fantasy; The Push, an sf tale set in the Human Space sector of the home galaxy, describes the inception of Faster Than Light travel and some consequent complications when expanding humanity settles on a planet full of Alien life. Europe in Autumn (2014), an sf thriller involving espionage, takes place in a highly fragmented and still fragmenting Near-Future Europe, one of whose sovereign mini-nations is a transcontinental railway line; over the course of the central plot – which seems to reflect some aspects of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 – the protagonist becomes involved in the Paranoia-inducing Les Coureurs des Bois, a mysterious postal service which also delivers humans across innumerable borders.
- See more at: http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hutc...
Works
* The Villages (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Cosmos Books, 2001)
* Europe in Autumn (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Rebellion/Solaris, 2014)
Collections and Stories
* Thumbprints (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Fools' Gold (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Torn Air (London: Abelard, 1980)
* The Paradise Equation (London: Abelard, 1981)
* As the Crow Flies (Wigan, Lancashire: BeWrite Books, 2004)
* The Push (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2009)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Want to read
May 2, 2016This is copy 31 of 150 signed and numbered copies signed by Dave Hutchinson and Eric Brown.
Cover Artist: Andy Bigwood
This is Newcon Press Book 018.
Released as a limited edition of 150 dust-jacketed hardbacks signed by the author and the introducer limited edition of 200 paperbacks signed by the author.
Cover Artist: Andy Bigwood
This is Newcon Press Book 018.
Released as a limited edition of 150 dust-jacketed hardbacks signed by the author and the introducer limited edition of 200 paperbacks signed by the author.
February 19, 2010
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1394928.html#cutid5
This is an excellent hard sf novella, combining a couple of plot elements from Zelazny's "This Moment of the Storm" and GRRM's "Sandkings"; the narrator has spent decades fleeing his own past, and then finds it catching up with him, as the dumb aliens on the planet he helped colonise turn out not to be so dumb after all. The resolution of the hero's emotional and moral predicament is both imaginative and satisfying.
This is an excellent hard sf novella, combining a couple of plot elements from Zelazny's "This Moment of the Storm" and GRRM's "Sandkings"; the narrator has spent decades fleeing his own past, and then finds it catching up with him, as the dumb aliens on the planet he helped colonise turn out not to be so dumb after all. The resolution of the hero's emotional and moral predicament is both imaginative and satisfying.
November 12, 2025
Neil Hanson is summoned back to a thriving colony he and an old friend founded 200 years ago in their relativistically dilated youth. Intelligence has unexpectedly emerged in the native life, threatening dire consequences for the settlers' descendants once Earth's government intervenes.
Hutchinson's dialogue-heavy novella paints a vivid history of a colony privately established by itinerant rich kids and their cargo of sleeping pioneers centuries earlier. As Neil tries to find a solution to their alien problem, we learn the backstory of the now legendary founding four and uncover long-buried secrets.
Neil’s character emerges quickly through sharp, witty exchanges that feel entirely authentic. The worldbuilding and history provide a solid backdrop to the plot, and the resolution lands perfectly. This is as good as novellas get — and the perfect entry point for discovering Hutchinson.
Hutchinson's dialogue-heavy novella paints a vivid history of a colony privately established by itinerant rich kids and their cargo of sleeping pioneers centuries earlier. As Neil tries to find a solution to their alien problem, we learn the backstory of the now legendary founding four and uncover long-buried secrets.
Neil’s character emerges quickly through sharp, witty exchanges that feel entirely authentic. The worldbuilding and history provide a solid backdrop to the plot, and the resolution lands perfectly. This is as good as novellas get — and the perfect entry point for discovering Hutchinson.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews