Spin
Robert Charles Wilson
2005 · 458 pages · Science fiction
How it reads
Spin is science fiction (cosmic science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is melancholy. It's quietly sad, wistful and reflective. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in several locations, in the future, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are family, loss and grief and survival. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 458 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something melancholy
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something funny or hopeful
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- science fiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- melancholy
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- family, loss and grief, survival
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The dog starsPeter HellerShares: science fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the WorldHaruki MurakamiShares: science fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- I Cannot Get You Close Enough: Three NovellasEllen GilchristShares: melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, bittersweet ending
The KingdomsNatasha PulleyShares: science fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
White OleanderJanet FitchShares: melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, bittersweet ending
Future Home of the Living GodLouise ErdrichShares: science fiction, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, set in multiple locations
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