- Publisher: Tachyon Publications
- Publication date: June 12, 2018
- Language: English
- Print length: 192 pages
- ISBN-10: 1616962526
- ISBN-13: 978-1616962524
- Author: Peter Watts
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts is set on an interstellar ship sometime in the distant future. The Eriophora is a modified asteroid converted into a mostly autonomous craft run. It uses an internal black hole for a power source and is controlled by an AI called the Chimp. The crew is kept ‘frozen’ and the Chimp only wakes up a few of its crew each time it builds a ‘gate’, presumably so other Earth inhabitants can follow through the gates without traversing the incredible distances between them. Since most are only awake for a short time every few thousand years, Sunday Ahzmundin and the rest of the crew of have been on this mission for literally millions of years. In all this time, they have yet to see any evidence that any other humans are following, or even still exist.
The Chimp is a near-all-knowing, near-all-powerful entity in this asteroid universe, but it is not all-intelligent. Its designers purposefully made it dependent on the crew and the human ability to think outside-the-box. It is questionable whether or not it is actually conscious. It is completely dedicated to the mission, and is not dedicated to the crew other than that they are required to complete the mission. A few of the crew begin to doubt whether the mission should continue.
This is an interesting premise, and Watts creates an interesting set of characters in this very limited, and yet limitless, universe. They’ve been traveling for ages in real time, but each person has only aged a few years to a few decades. You may or may not be with the same group of people the next time you wake up. How do you communicate with folks who won’t get your messages for centuries? How do you hide information from an all-seeing, all-knowing entity? What happens if you fail?
The Freeze-Frame Revolution seems consistent and believable in context. Even the author acknowledges (in his acknowledgements) that something set so far in the future is bound to be “pretty much everything handwavium,” and yet it feels reasonable. I liked this book a lot.
A side note, if you are reading from a paper book and maybe on e-devices, there are single red letters interspersed throughout the story. I am told that if you track each of these, they will direct you to a bonus additional story on Peter Watts’ website. I tried for about a minute to do this, but ended up googling to find the link. It was an nice little addition to the tale. I won’t supply the direct link since you can find it yourself, one way or another.
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets MANY of his books out of the library/Libby so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
Monster: A Novel by Matt Truxaw
