{"product_id":"hole-in-the-sky-isbn-9798217169108","title":"Hole in the Sky","description":"\u003cb\u003eA gripping sci-fi thriller—and Native American First Contact story—from the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e, Daniel Wilson, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and works as a threat forecaster for NASA.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHeliopause is a real place—the very outer edge of our solar system where the sun's solar winds are no longer strong enough to keep debris and intrusions from bombarding our system. It is the farthest edge of our protected boundary (it was recently crossed by Voyager), and the line beyond which space experts look for extraterrestrial presences. This is where Daniel Wilson's fascinating novel begins. Weaving together the story of Jim, a down-on-his-luck absentee father in the Osage territory of Oklahoma, and his daughter, Tawny, with those of a NASA engineer, a misfit anonymous genius who lives in military isolation analyzing a secret incoming \"Pattern,\" and a CIA investigator tasked with tracking unexplained encounters, \u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e explores a Native American first contact that pulls all five characters into something never before seen or imagined.\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eScientific American\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eGizmodo \u003c\/i\u003eBest Book of the Year • American Library Association Alex Award Winner\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e] starts off as science fiction and ends somewhere in the murky realm of cosmic horror and elder gods, but getting there is so enjoyable it will please a wide variety of readers. Military aficionados will love the jargon and tech, and Mr. Wilson does a masterly job of combining Native American experience and ancestral connection with modern warfare for a satisfying resolution.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson, the author of \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e, is back with another epic.... A well-executed thriller.... Wilson slowly ratchets up the weirdness.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson reimagines first contact through an Indigenous lens, fusing Cherokee cosmology with cutting-edge science and creeping cosmic horror.... Cerebral and visceral — part techno-thriller, part elegy, part fever dream. Cinematic in scope yet intimate at heart, “Hole in the Sky” balances nightmarish imagery with emotional resonance.... A bold, imaginative and deeply human take on what happens when we meet the unknown, and realize it’s been here all along.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Where Indigenous knowledge meets science fiction.... Another mind-bending novel.... Wilson takes readers on a journey of dealing with the unknown.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Cherokee Phoenix\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A first contact story, \u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky \u003c\/i\u003eseems a familiar tale. Yet in its telling, Daniel H. Wilson chooses the road less traveled by. Wielding immediate prose and Native mythology, Wilson draws on his own deep roots to weave a story that is not only thrilling and personal, but an important addition to the landscape of science fiction.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003ePierce Brown\u003c\/b\u003e, #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of the Red Rising series\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eIncredible...\u003ci\u003e Hole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a thrilling, brilliant page-turner, its pages also turned me into the kind of reader I always want to be—deeply involved and curious about the world and the story unfolding before me, as if by magic—the kind of reader who can’t stop reading, who dreads the book coming to an end even while I can’t stop making my way toward it, who goes back and starts all over to figure out how it was done. Here we have a highly original premise about alien contact—no small feat unto itself—which also manages to seamlessly fold in Indigenous lives and knowledge. Every character here is alive, and there are so many stunning sentences I had to stop underlining. The story is killer. I love it. Run don’t walk to read this book.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eTommy Orange\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of\u003ci\u003e There There\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWandering Stars\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is mind-bending…. Indigenous knowledge collides with science fiction in a thrilling page-turner.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSterlin Harjo\u003c\/b\u003e, filmmaker and writer, \u003ci\u003eReservation Dogs \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An expertly constructed, tightly-paced novel packed with ideas, populated with vivid characters, and suffused with heart and intelligence. Daniel Wilson is a talented storyteller, with a gift for crafting imaginative and entertaining narratives, and \u003ci\u003eHole In The Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is no exception. Captivating and full of wonder.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCharles Yu\u003c\/b\u003e, National Book Award-winning author of\u003ci\u003e Interior Chinatown\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Part thriller, part horror, \u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky \u003c\/i\u003eis an Indigenous tale of first contact in the vein of \u003ci\u003eArrival\u003c\/i\u003e that asks us what is reality and what is a dream and if there is a difference. Strange and wondrous and terrible all at once.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eRebecca Roanhorse\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eBlack Sun\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hands down one of the best books I’ve read in a couple of years. Daniel H. Wilson has crafted a technotradish ride into the future in the most harrowing and engaging ways imaginable. Tightly tuned, sharply researched, and warm in all the best ways, you’ll want to clear your schedule because this is a sit-down-and-read-the-whole-thing-right-now kind of book. Bravo, Mr. Wilson!”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eTheodore C. Van Alst Jr.\u003c\/b\u003e, bestselling co-editor of the \u003ci\u003eNever Whistle At Night \u003c\/i\u003eseries\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e “This book doesn’t whisper. It roars from the edges of space, memory, and grief. \u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is Indigenous sci-fi at its rawest: part cosmic threat, part broken father-daughter elegy, part fever dream of classified government failures. The humanity here is bruised, sharp-tongued, and holding on. And the fear? It’s in the blood. This one gets under your skin and stays there.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eShane Hawk\u003c\/b\u003e, bestselling co-editor of the \u003ci\u003eNever Whistle at Night\u003c\/i\u003e series\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson has an exceptional narrative voice and captures many different points of view to create a world that feels real and is suddenly in catastrophic, even existential, danger.... The ending broke my heart in the best way possible.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eScientific American\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The narrative has a grand feel and despite its many influences is utterly original, balancing the epic with a story that is deeply personal. It reminded me of why I love reading. I devoured it.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCraig DiLouie, author of \u003ci\u003eEpisode Thirteen, Gizmodo\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is a classic alien-contact thriller…. There are moments of fear – humans in great danger of being attacked by aliens; and of wonder – when the true nature of the alien becomes ap[1]parent…. This is a novel about humanity: the people who approach the strange with fascination and curiosity, and those who approach it with fear…. An enjoyable entry into this venerable genre.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLocus Magazine\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson (\u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e) draws on his Cherokee heritage to meld Native American and scientific knowledge into a stunning phantasmagoric first contact tale.... Like the best \u003ci\u003eX-Files\u003c\/i\u003e episodes, this story uses the alien character to bring out the human elements in vivid detail. It’s a masterful feat.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mind-blowing.... Wilson's suspenseful, adrenaline-filled adventure will keep readers engaged and guessing to the end.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eHole in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e is] worth the wait... unique, enthralling, and spectacularly well told.... [Wilson is] drawing on personal heritage and experience in this book, and it shows: this is his most\u003cbr\u003eemotionally rich, spiritually resonant novel, and it’ll stay with readers long after the last page has been turned.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBooklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson is no stranger to big-thinking epistolary SF epics. Here, armed with a few novel entry points into an old horror story (à la \u003ci\u003eThe Thing\u003c\/i\u003e), he turns his attention to an alien invader way more frightening than a microbe.... Wilson stitches together a prescription bottle’s worth of nightmarish images, invasive biotechnology, and Indigenous cosmology.... Less spectacle than a robot uprising but deeper, weirder, and harder to shake off.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eDANIEL H. WILSON is a Cherokee citizen and author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e and its sequel \u003ci\u003eRobogenesis\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as \u003ci\u003eHow to Survive a Robot Uprising\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Clockwork Dynasty\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e. He earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Masters degrees in Machine Learning and Robotics.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDetection\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE MAN DOWNSTAIRS \/\/ Undisclosed Location\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDetection, T-­Minus 6 Hours\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt began as a weekend art project during my eighth year of graduate school. On a lark, I had programmed a simple chatbot to write silly poems based on USGS data from seismic waves—­all the bumps and rattles coming from the interior of the planet’s surface. Then I added an input containing the static fuzz detected by a certain radio antenna trained on distant stars. Finally—­and this is the part I have come to regret the most—­I complemented this data stream with biometric data from my own wrist-­worn fitness tracker device.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI called my project Thoughts of the Universe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was just a joke—­a goofy little project squeezed between a self-­playing video game and a kite rigged to take Polaroid pictures from the air, letting the images flutter down to the startled people it had surveilled. But after a few months of posting a ceaseless stream of slightly poetic nonsense, my project happened to output the precise magnitude and location of a coronal mass ejection—­a wall of solar plasma that would violently cripple a host of highly classified military satellites.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThing is—­it was an event that would occur ten hours later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThoughts of the Universe had somehow glimpsed the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA NOAA scientist researching geomagnetic disturbances discovered my website and saw the impossible timing of the prediction. Later, a CIA analyst caught wind of it. After I failed to provide a satisfactory explanation, Thoughts of the Universe was summarily shut down and all data confiscated for further study. I was removed from my academic position and “offered” a mandatory government job. All traces of my studies, my tenure in the computer science program, and educational records were erased.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was twelve years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis morning an anomaly notification came to my private office, located a long elevator ride below a Q-­cleared secure government facility somewhere in the continental United States of America. For context, I’ll try to describe this place. Keep in mind I didn’t build it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, my feelings didn’t factor into any of this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first thing you’d notice is probably the isolation bridge. It’s a gnarly catwalk stretching over a metal pit, illuminated from below by stripes of LED lighting. It’s effectively a moat, keeping the world separated from the Pattern. A thick, braided cable crosses the bridge, clinging to the bottom of the catwalk like a tropical vine. It provides a power source, as well as a constant feed of some very specific data streams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOtherwise, nothing besides photons is allowed to cross.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the dead center of this cavernous room, a cube of glass and steel is perched high on metal stilts. Floodlights are mounted above and below, casting complicated shadows through the metal latticework of an embedded Faraday cage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thing being kept in the box is not alive. It is not a monster in the conventional sense. It isn’t an oracle, or a god.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot quite, but close. About as close as it gets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInside the central cube, eight black slabs of supercooled quantum computers rise up in a gap-­toothed circle that reminds me of Stonehenge. The hardware is running a collection of relatively simple algorithms through sheer brute force, with enough computing power to route every byte of Internet traffic in North America through this room. And all this power is spent analyzing one data pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr, as it’s come to be called, the Pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the Pattern was officially activated, I simultaneously became a nonentity, an invaluable military asset, and the sole denizen of this very special office built in total secrecy and at insane expense. I haven’t had a name in a decade, although my colleagues eventually selected a special designation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am known simply as the “Man Downstairs.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis appellation is often shortened to “MD,” although if I still had any academic credentials, my qualifications wouldn’t quite match such a title.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem, in hindsight, is this damned fitness device. It makes me a crucial component of the Pattern. Not only does my biometric output feed the data stream, but I also seem to be the only person capable of translating its gibberish poetry into sensical predictions. Sifting diamonds from silt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery day, I sit hunched over a simple card table in a brightly lit plexiglass cube, smaller than that of the Pattern, and hazy with wafts of stale smoke. The government gives me all the cigarettes I want—­their one concession. And as I smoke, I read these thoughts of the universe, my lips moving as I mumble to myself. There is nothing in here with me except a folding chair and a flimsy card table stained with burn marks, loaded with now-­antiquated technology.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA battered old web camera rests on the table, attached to an even older computer. The webcam faces another screen located across the catwalk. The Pattern projects its thoughts on this screen twenty-­four hours a day. The grainy text and images picked up by my camera are fed into a massive and ancient dot-­matrix printer. My lucky card table shakes as the printing arm mindlessly slides back and forth across a scrolling ream of paper, relentlessly laying down pixelated words and images in screaming weals of ink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd as the printer vomits this endless page, I read it with the air of a 1950s dad perusing the Sunday paper. Every now and then, I’ll find something interesting. I’ll stub out my cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, and I’ll begin to copy the printout by hand, using an ordinary red pencil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is understood that the Pattern cannot be trusted to have direct communication with the outside world. The Pattern isn’t officially thought to be sentient, but nobody really knows how it might evolve if it escaped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr how our enemies might use it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis danger is the reason for the elaborate cage, and for the necessity of not only a physical air gap isolating the Pattern, but a series of informational air gaps in the form of digital outputs converted to hard copy, and the hard copy converted by human hand into that most ancient format: pencil and paper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy government-­provided psychologist assures me the job I’m doing is crucial for the safety of hundreds of millions of people up above. She tells me I’m a real American hero.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt makes me want to light another smoke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause the Pattern’s predictions always come true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways. Always, always. And that, particularly, is the bitch of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn their typical staid fashion, the quantum math people have quietly assigned terminology to explain this experimental outcome. “Retrocausation” is built on the fact that quantum mechanics works the same, regardless of which direction it is traveling through time. This means that cause and effect can also propagate backward in time, with cause seeming to happen after its effect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe math isn’t actually that complicated—­but the results are . . . challenging to fully comprehend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Pattern has predicted the future, explained the past, and delivered data so bizarre as to be impossible for our highest-­IQ individuals to understand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways, the interpreted orders arrive with no attribution other than my initials: “MD.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMD intelligence mandates are always obeyed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is despite more than a few four-­star generals opining on my dwindling sanity. But the Pattern has been doubted before, with disastrous consequences. Thus, at every new fund-­allocation meeting, the Pentagon’s strange project is rubber-­stamped with approval.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank goodness. The Pattern saw it first, of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike a medium holding a séance, I was sitting in my plexiglass office with a cigarette dangling from my lips—­my long, thin fingers scrawling out the words of a pattern of thought locked in silicone and floating on waves of quantum programming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomething reached out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is what the Pattern overheard:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e. . . black expanses collapse to this single point. A pocket of complexity. Rock, air, and liquid observe themselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThinking matter trapped on a blue marble.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dull gleam of a billion fireflies signaling over an expanse of still black water. Dreams and thoughts and notions tickling tangled eyelashes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe weight of a new reality. Thoughts focus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn eye opens in the deep . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was no silly, disjointed string of words. It wasn’t the dry statistics of a prediction. This felt like a threat, coming from something I couldn’t begin to understand. The Pattern was broadcasting the voice of . . . something else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd so, I sent up a warning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe following mandate was delivered to the president, chiefs of staff, the secretary of defense, and much farther downstream, to an individual agent named Dr. Gavin Clark in the DoD’s Emerging Weapons Technologies Group—­a man who would be chosen to spearhead a very special mission for the U.S. government.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe world had no idea what was coming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTELLIGENCE MANDATE—­ALL MILITARY BRANCHES PREPARE FOR INTERACTION WITH NONHUMAN INTELLIGENCE. ALL OUTWARD-­FACING PERSONNEL BE ADVISED: FIRST CONTACT IMMINENT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—­MD","brand":"Random House Large Print","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233231909093,"sku":"NP9798217169108","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9798217169108.jpg?v=1767729131","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/hole-in-the-sky-isbn-9798217169108","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}