The Queendom of Sol is a science fiction book series by American author Wil McCarthy. It includes The Collapsium (2000),[1]The Wellstone (2003),[2]Lost in Transmission (2004),[3] and To Crush the Moon (2005).[4] The first two novels of the series were also printed together as The Monarchs of Sol by Science Fiction Book Club (ISBN0739433881).
The Collapsium is a 2000 hard science fiction novel and the first in the series.[5][6][7] The first section of the novel is based on McCarthy's short story "Once Upon a Matter Crushed", which was a Sturgeon Award finalist.[8] A reviewer stated McCarthy used postmodern literary technique in consciously creating a protagonist who is a "throwback" to the scientist-heroes of Golden Age SF.[9]
The Wellstone
The Wellstone is a 2003 novel, publishes as the second in the series.[10] In The Wellstone, McCarthy explores the lives of immortal humans known as immorbids in the future. Nanotechnology has created the wellstone, programmable matter that can emulate nearly any other form of matter,[11] and nanotech fax machines that can not only fabricate objects on demand, but store and retrieve human bodies (with minds intact), cure disease or reverse aging, or be used as teleporters. Ultradense exotic matter known as collapsium makes gravity manipulation and faster-than-light communication possible. Humanity has formed a solar system–wide society based on monarchy.
Many of the technologies in this novel are also described in McCarthy's 2003 nonfiction book, Hacking Matter.
To Crush the Moon
To Crush the Moon, published in 2005,[12] is the last in the four-part series.
^Gerald Jonas (September 3, 2000). "Reviewed This Week—The Collapsium (and others)". Books. The New York Times. Retrieved April 17, 2012. Its hero, Bruno de Towaji, is smart and sexy—a brooding supergenius who combines the most estimable qualities of Albert Einstein, Sherlock Holmes and Marlon Brando. Of course, he is a postmodern construct—a conscious throwback to the scientist-heroes of early 20th-century science fiction, who defeated evil and won the girl with weapons they whipped up in the laboratory on a moment's notice.
