krf7527@ritcv.UUCP (Keith Fieldhouse) (04/09/85)
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Hello,
The following is a plea for help. The book I am about to describe
was read many years ago -- before I was really interested in SF.
As such, I have no idea who wrote it or what its title is. The
only thing I can provide, besides the rather shaky plot synopsis
is the fact that it was published in a paperback version with
a greenish cover. On to the plot:
There are several reports of prehistoric "things" roaming around --
Dinosaurs, cavemen etc. A group of people decide to investigate
(a fairly reasonable thing to do, I suppose).
This group of people find a research laboratory which has actually
created a miniature universe. Yup, that's right they started with
an atom, put it in a tank, applied Big Bang and heated slowly or
something like that. It turns out the prehistoric scenes are the
result of some previously malfunctioning equipment projecting
scenes from the little tiny worlds in the mini-universe all over
the neighborhood. This of course scared the be-jabbers off
the neighbors and off went our group.
Well, the group gets a good chuckle out of all this especially
when they find out that the scientists have some even better
equipment. Now, if you concentrate real hard on one of the planets,
you can enter the mind of one of its inhabitants. The middle
portion of the book is taken up with our heroes having vicarious(sp?)
adventures on the mini-planets. By the way, the development
of the mini-universe is orders of magnitude faster than our own,
so you can spend several months on a planet in only a few hours
of "real" time.
As this universe continues to advance, its inhabitants realize
that it is finite (hemmed in by the tank). In fact, the mini-universe
is about to collapse in on itself. The remainder of the book
deals with some of the leaders of the mini-universe, in cahoots
with some of the original group trying to "break free" against
the wishes of the scientists. I won't spoil the ending in case
someone is actually reading the book now.
My question is this: Does *anyone* know the title and/or author
of the book? Does anyone have a clue? I don't mean to indicate
with my rather flippant description that it was a bad book. As
I recall except for the rather errrr... interesting bits of
science the book was very engrossing. Any help anyone can
offer will be cause for great celebration on my part. I'll
even name my kids after you. Nah, I'll name my goldfish after
you.
Thanks for your help
Keith Fieldhouse
@ The Rochester Institute of Technology
{allegra | seismo}!rochester!ritcv!krf7527mpm@hpfcms.UUCP (mpm) (04/16/85)
The name of the book is "Edge of Time" by David Grinnell. Ace Books
published it in the late 60s. I too found it engrossing. In fact, I
recently reread it and found that it remained a good read. (You may find
a copy in a used book store; there are lots of such shops in Denver.) By
the way, my old Ace books show that Grinnell wrote another book called
"Across Time" (I think), which I've never read.
-- Mike "those were the golden years of SF" McCarthy
{ hplabs | ihnp4 } hpfcla!hpfcms!mpm