CUSP

Widescreen Technicolor extravaganza involving physics, aliens, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, superhumans, and what-all, from the author of Picoverse (not seen).

In 2031, the Sun develops a plasma jet and begins to accelerate toward Alpha Centauri. At the same time, two rings sprout from the Earth, one at the equator, the other from pole to pole, each fifty kilometers wide by four high. As the globe convulses, millions die. Fortunately, the Sun soon stops accelerating. Twenty years later, in Alabama, Christina Olmos and her father, Xavier, use their exceptional interfacing abilities to trawl the Void (cyberspace) for information. Sarah Sutherland, daughter of General Thomas Sutherland (he claims to know the future), prepares to destroy half her brain—so she can merge with supercomputer CUSP and go Post-Point, becoming a superhuman of almost unimaginable capabilities. Simon Ryan, a part cyborg Tool with cyberspace advisor Bill Gates (the same) in his head, tries to figure out who and what he is. On Mars, Ambassador Adebisi Akandi prepares to meet Drom, a much-enhanced dinosaur living inside the moon Phobos, actually a huge spaceship. Drom talks much about his race's ancient rivals, the Clingers (highly evolved lemurlike creatures) and their spaceship, the Jovian moon Amalthea. Akandi also learns that the alien Alphans have placed 237 habitable worlds in orbit about Alpha Centauri. Police officer Padmini Sundaram finds herself in the middle of a scheme orchestrated by the Swirl, a mysterious and powerful artificial intelligence. The jet starts to fire again. This isn’t the half of it.

Overcomplicated by several orders of magnitude, with anonymous characters mystifyingly associated with a ferocious and largely unfathomable plot. Still, minds will boggle at the extravagance of Metzger's imagination.