Author: Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy / Source: WIRED
Peter F. Hamilton, one of Britain’s leading science fiction authors, has been hard at work on his massive seven-volume Commonwealth series since 2003. His new novel Salvation, about a world where teleportation is cheap and easy, is a major change of pace.
“It’s something I wanted to do as a writer, just to keep fresh,” Hamilton says in Episode 327 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Therefore, whole new universe, whole new set of characters, whole new problems for people.”
Teleportation is a common theme in science fiction, but most examples, like the transporters in Star Trek, tend to be used in very limited ways. In Salvation, Hamilton wanted to explore the concept fully.
“The fun bit of that was saying, ‘OK, we’ve got this system, how would it actually work on a practical, day-to-day level?” he says. “So much of what we have today revolves around getting from one place to another, getting goods out of factories to shops, it all changes. And that took me about six months to work out the minutiae, the absolute details of how it would change us.”
Hamilton envisions a future in which teleportation portals are used for garbage disposal, irrigation, and carbon sequestration, and in which the now-useless bridges and highways have been converted into parks and shopping centers. He also predicts that cheap teleportation would spell the end of the hotel business.
“If it takes two minutes to walk from where I am [in England] to America, what do I need a hotel for?
” he says. “There are still fabulous resorts and places like that, but the idea of a businessman needing a hotel for the night? No, that’s gone.”Watch a Giant Chunk of Ice Fall into the Sea
Teleportation might also allow humanity to easily explore the galaxy. Hamilton’s interstellar starships are propelled forward by exhaust channeled through a portal. “You have one part of the portal that you just drop into the…
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