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    Lockstep
    Lockstep
    Lockstep
    Audiobook13 hours

    Lockstep

    Written by Karl Schroeder

    Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he' s orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he' s surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still-- that he' s been asleep for 14,000 years. Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for milennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new center of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the Empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own. Toby' s brother Peter has become a terrible tyrant. Suspicious of the return of his long-lost brother, whose rightful inheritance also controls the lockstep hibernation cycles, Peter sees Toby as a threat to his regime. Now, with the help of a lockstep girl named Corva, Toby must survive the forces of this new Empire, outwit his siblings, and save human civilization. Karl Schroeder's Lockstep is a grand innovation in hard SF space opera.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 25, 2014
    ISBN9781490601069
    Lockstep
    Author

    Karl Schroeder

    KARL SCHROEDER is a professional futurist as well as one of Canada's most popular science fiction and fantasy authors. He divides his time between writing and conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. He is the author of The Million, as well as a half-dozen previous SF novels.

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    Reviews for Lockstep

    3.5/5

    82 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      When reading Karl Schroeder you've got to be ready to put your brain into overdrive to keep up with the ideas and discussions. Deep within this fairly basic story with complex world building, are hidden some real gems to contemplate:Time - it's everything to this world since the Locksteps are places where everyone is awake for short periods and then in hibernation for years until the next scheduled wake time. This is done on a regular schedule and allows the people to make drastic jumps into the future while feeling like they've only slept a single night. And there are other locksteps with different schedules, which means some people speed through time closer to real time than others. This really stretches the concept of time and how we think about it.The Rise and Fall of Civilizations - While those living in the locksteps pass through 14,000 effortlessly, people living back on Earth and other "fast moving" planets have post-human civilizations that continue a cycle of rise and fall. The locksteps provide an option to reset many of these world after the crash of a post-human culture.Orphaned Worlds Between the Stars - Once again, like he did in his book Permanence Karl Schroeder sets much of his universe on planets either at the edge of solar systems or floating between the stars. These worlds are easier to get to and don't require quite as much travel time as getting to the nearest stars, though he hints that these too are populated by humans over the vast stretch of time. There are even some more exotic places, such as one planet who gets it's light from giant laser arrays located in the "Laser Wastes" There is no doubt this universe is big enough he could easily visit it again, exploring some of the places we only get a brief mention of in this book.The story itself is pretty common broken family stuff, but set inside this universe adds some new twists to it. The ending could have been a bit more detailed and dramatic; it wasn't bad, but it did seem a bit flat. Overall, I highly recommend this one, but be sure to be ready to tackle some strange new concepts.
    • 4/5
      Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley.

      Lockstep is a fantastic, entertaining novel that I find a bit difficult to summarize. The short version is that it will probably appeal to readers of young adult and hard scifi, but existing experience with scifi will definitely help ease the process. Schroeder is most interested in the way developments like cryogenic sleep and interstellar travel might change human society, and he dives deep into almost every aspect of the “lockstep society” he’s created for this novel.

      The story kicks off when seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal goes on a fairly mundane mission to claim an asteroid for his family, who’ve settled on a far-off planet to escape Earth’s corruption. Something goes wrong with Toby’s ship while he is en route, and instead of staying in cryosleep for a short time, he wakes up to discover that a huge amount of time has passed and everything he knows has irrevocably changed. These changes are social, political and extremely personal, and the more we learn about the lockstep society, the more heart-breaking Toby’s story becomes.

      The first important thing that Toby learns is that humans colonized hundreds of far-flung worlds thanks to one of his family’s inventions. However, because faster-than-light travel doesn’t exist and most of the colonized worlds are short on natural resources, the only way for the colonies to survive and trade with each other is for every world to go into cryosleep for set periods of time at the same time. While everyone is in cryosleep, ships travel vast distances and limited resources build up enough to keep them alive. In the lockstep society founded by Toby’s family, this means thirty years of cryosleep for every month of time spent awake in real-time or “fast time”.

      This leads to Toby’s second discovery, which is that despite the fact that huge amounts of time have passed since he left on his ill-fated trip, some of his immediate family members are still alive. The problem is that they are now infinitely powerful, decades older than when he last saw them, and, much to his surprise, bent on killing him just for existing.

      It turns out that while Toby was gone, his family members not only cemented their control over a huge society of hundreds of worlds, but also built up an intricate mythology behind his disappearance. His reappearance in their world threatens their control, and he soon finds himself running from the man and woman he used to call his little brother and sister.

      One of the most fascinating aspects of Lockstep is the idea of human civilizations getting out of sync; inside the lockstep society, everything stays the same despite decades spent in cryosleep, while outside societies rise and fall in real-time. Humans slowly become post-human, intergalactic wars destroy entire worlds, and cities build up outside the gates of sleeping locksteps. A constant influx of settlers from outside worlds means that there are people born millennia after Toby now living inside the lockstep society, people who grew up their entire lives hearing about the legendary McGonigal family and their lockstep worlds.

      Lockstep definitely has the young protagonist common to the YA genre, and the lockstep world is ultimately a failed utopia, but the hard scifi elements might make it hard to sell as a YA novel, which is probably why it’s not marketed as such. However, I definitely think this book would appeal to YA readers if they’re willing to wrap their head around some fairly complex world-building.

      I might recommend it to someone who enjoys books like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, but wants to read something that plays on a bit bigger canvas. Personally, I really enjoyed reading a book that explored theoretical worlds in such depth, and I highly recommend it. Also, the book definitely wraps up all of its threads at the end and feels like a very solid standalone, but I wouldn’t mind reading another story set in the same universe.
    • 4/5
      This was a book about time and family and politics, and how all those things can spin out of your control even if you hold on tightly. It was also a fascinating science fiction book about how to create a thriving economy in a universe where faster than light travel doesn't exist: by "wintering over" or putting your entire city or planet into croygenic sleep for decades and staying awake for only a month between sleeps.

      I really enjoyed this book. Once I grasped what had happened to the main character--and how the universe he found himself in worked--I kept thinking about time and change and how distance doesn't always make the heart grow fonder and how you really, truly, can't go home again, because home has changed so much you don't recognize it.

      If you enjoy that sort of thing, alongside a dose of political maneuvering, some battles, space travel, cute pets, and growing up, then you'll enjoy Lockstep.

      (Provided by publisher)
    • 3/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: A 17-year-old wakes up from cryo sleep to find the world has passed him by as he slept, and his once beloved siblings now want him dead in this intriguing yet ultimately disappointing science fiction novel.Opening Sentence: Two bright moons chased each other across a butterscotch sky.The Review:After entering a hibernated state in order to make a trip to an unnavigated planet, Toby McGonigal wakes up thinking everything is normal. Little does he know his whole life is about to change. When his ship is rescued, Toby discovers that he was asleep for a whopping fourteen thousand years. In that time, the way the world works has completely changed. Apparently, Toby’s mother created something known as a lockstep, where everyone hibernates in a state of cryo sleep for 30 years and then wake up and live their life for a month before entering sleep again. In this way, Toby’s mother figures she can give herself plenty of time to search for Toby. Toby’s brother and sister are now in charge of the government, which would be a good thing, except they’ve put out an execution order on Toby. Now, he has to try and figure out this new world, try to find his mother, and avoid his brother and sister all while keeping his identity a secret. Life may have been a lot less complicated if he had just stayed asleep.I thought the concept of this book was intriguing. In general, I like science fiction novels, so I was excited to start this one. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite meet my expectations. I’m not sure if I was just too tired when reading, but I had a very hard time following how the various locksteps worked. Anytime a plot point hinged on understanding how the world worked, I found myself incredibly confused, and it just yanked me out of the story. Again, it may have just been my tired brain refusing to work properly enough to understand the nuances of the locksteps, but I had a very hard time.On top of that, the book starts off very slowly. Part of it has to do with the book needing to take the time to explain how everything works. Probably around the 20 percent mark, when Toby meets some of the main secondary characters, things pick up a bit. It still often feels like not much is going on, but at the halfway point, everything takes off, and it becomes hard to put the book down. The ending comes a bit abruptly though. I think it would have been nice to have just a few more chapters to wrap everything up in a more cohesive manner.All in all, this book was very up and down. It had an interesting concept that was hard for me to understand, and while there were great moments in the storyline, there were lots of slow moments too. All of this led to an average rating from me. I may check out more from this author, but not in the near future.Notable Scene:And suddenly there were tears in his eyes.Corva hadn’t known anything about Toby’s father. That could only mean one thing: Dad was dead. Funny thing – Toby had spent the past month knowing this as a fact, thinking that Mother was long gone, too, and Peter and Evayne. Suddenly the others were alive again, but Dad wasn’t and somehow that made him . . . more than dead. Corva didn’t even know he’d existed.He was gone, erased from history, and somehow that was so much worse than his simply having died long ago.Peter, tyrant of seventy thousand worlds? And Evayne, did she know Toby was alive? Had she agreed with this insane order to have him killed? It was all crazy.He shuffled his way into the little chamber where Corva now lay like a lifeless doll and climbed into his bag. The denner watched him alertly as he zipped the bag up to his chin. “I’m alone,” he said aloud.A little furry paw tapped him on the cheek. He turned to find himself staring into two golden eyes. His denner was small enough to be the runt of its litter and as lonely, maybe, as Toby.Toby brought it into the bag, hugging it against his chest, and began to cry. “You need a name. You can’t go to sleep without a name.” Its purr was becoming hypnotic, and as had happened on the boat, Toby felt an answering vibration start deep within himself.“It’s gotta be good,” he said sleepily. “Not Blacky or Midnight.” He laughed at himself.He thought about the gods and heroes of ancient mythology, many of whom had come to virtual life in the games he and Peter played. Which of them had gone between life and death? – A lot of those crazy Greeks, actually. Persephone would be perfect, except that she was a woman and this denner was male. Charon, the boatman of the dead? Too bleak.The song of the denner was all around him now, and he knew its name.“You’re Orpheus,” he muttered. Orpheus, the hero whose music was so powerful that he used it to lull all the monsters of the underworld into sleep, allowing him to sneak into the afterlife and steal back his dead wife.“All right, Orpheus. Let’s go see Hades.”FTC Advisory: Tor/Macmillan provided me with a copy of Lockstep. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 4/5
      Quite different from the usual far future sci fi I've read, this one postulates that FTL is never solved and so hibernation is the only way to travel to distant stars. And, beyond that, setting entire planets or groups of nation-states on scheduled 'lockstep timelines' where the society is awake for a few weeks or months, then hibernate for different lengths of time, allow humans to trade and visit other similar societies. Lots of political and religious overtones as well as family dynamics color the action and the people involved.
    • 4/5
      I've read (and loved) quite a few of Karl Schroeder's books, but this was the first to be marketed as YA, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I found it better than I expected!

      Toby McGonigal is a near-future teen, obsessed with playing simulation video games, a loving brother and son. His family are pioneers, among the first to leave the solar system and lay claim to a rogue planet. In order to cement the ownership claim, the family must physically visit all the bodies in the system - but on an expedition to a remote asteroid, something goes wrong - and Toby doesn't come out of coldsleep until an unfathomable amount of time has passed - and the world has changed around him. Toby has left behind everything he ever knew - or has he? Either way, he'll need to make new friends, and take a gamble on who to trust, if he is to survive.

      Discovering the new future world - and its technicalities and politics - is a delight for the reader. The plot has all the charm and adventure of classic Andre Norton, but with snappy writing, and, most significantly, truly original, clever ideas. Although the plot will probably appeal most to teens, the social setup of Lockstep (and the exploration of the ramifications of the situation Schroeder creates) are enough to fascinate any hard sci-fi fan.

      Copy provided by NetGalley and Tor/Forge Books. Thanks!
    • 2/5
      I have been following this excellent science author for years, and this book simply went straight onto my to buy list, without hesitation. Oh dear, what I got was a children's space opera with stock male and female leads running rings around the hapless adults...The background was well done and had great potential, such a shame...Note to self, always check reviews in future.
    • 4/5
      First of all, this science fiction novel has a seriously cool concept: a league of 70,000 planets, some several light years apart, agree to follow the 360/1 frequency. Their populations stay awake for only one month and then hibernate, otherwise known as "wintering over" for 30 years at a time. That way, they can reserve their resources; many of these planets have extremely harsh environments, some of them don't even have suns, and they can still be trading partners with other far off planets, despite a lack of FTL technology. Go to sleep on a spaceship leaving your planet's orbit and wake up the "next morning" orbiting a totally different planet in another star system. Enter our main character Toby, who went missing while trying to rendezvous with a comet. His ship was knocked off course by space debris and he floated in space for 14,000 years. 14,000 years?????!!!! How the Hell did he survive in suspended animation for that long and still have power on his ship when he woke up? Yeah, that's the first unlikely scenario you have to swallow and if you can get past that, this book is going to throw even bigger whoppers at you. Like his family is still around because they created the lockstep and as far as they're concerned, only 40 years have passed. And did I mention they turned Toby into a god? His baby sister, now thirty years his elder, runs his religion. For the most part, it's a fun ride. The planets are well thought out and the characters are interesting. The plot drags a bit in the middle and there are some jump cuts that felt odd. The one character who basically drives the plot, you never actually meet. It can also feel a little bit juvenile since they story is told from 17 year old Toby's point of view. I still recommend it since it's such a neat idea. And I want my own denner! Read the book and so will you.
    • 3/5
      A young boy wakes up from cold sleep to find that fourteen thousand years have passed and somehow his family is the most important family in the universe. Lockstep works with worlds sleeping away the years while robots gather resources and then they wake for a while to trade and enjoy life and then go back to their hibernation mode. But not everyone one is happy in this universe and with the sudden appearance of Toby, the missing eldest child of the family everyone wants something from him. A good coming of age story but the ending seemed a bit too pat for my personal taste but others may like it. This is geared a bit more for the YA crowd but it certainly doesn't talk down to the reader.


      Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
    • 3/5
      I was soooo intrigued by the premise of the story. I was excited to see the epic world building that it could build upon. The idea was phenomenal and the first quarter of the book ensnared me.

      The the second quarter started and the excitement started to ware away. The epic world building I was expected was still partially there but this was turning into a mere YA novel and the focus started to scatter in many directions. The upcoming revolution and prophecies, the family squabbles, and mixed in with a little world building here and there took up the biggest chunk of the middle of the book.

      I was set to give this a four star review based on the originality of the story, but then the end came along and everything just ended with a tad bit of disappointment. I would have liked something more open ended that could lead to something further down the line. But the way it ends I can't see where the author may be taking this if at all.
    • 3/5
      My brain does not feel fully equipped to handle Lockstep. Obviously, this is not a criticism of the book; rather it is one on my limitations in spatial-temporal thinking. For you see, the whole book revolves around a fascinating but sometimes confusing concept of coordinated hibernation cycles. With no warp drives and lightyears between colonized planets, it's the most efficient way to keep a civilization going in a huge galaxy.In this Lockstep system, worlds are carefully timed on a "sleep-and-wake" schedule, and this also allows travelers to lie dormant during long trips between planets. Whole populations can go into cold sleeps for decades while only waking for a few weeks, but even after many cycles it could feel like hardly any time has passed at all. So in essence there's "real time" and then there's "Lockstep time". For example, the main character Toby finds that out the hard way, having gone to sleep after being lost in space then waking up 14,000 years later, real time. In Lockstep time though, only about four decades have passed. I've been noticing a lot more books featuring wild and innovative ideas dealing with space and time in recent years, and I think it's totally awesome! The concept behind the Lockstep Empire is one of the best and most original yet. Yet in spite of this, the book is not without its problems and for me they mainly involve the execution of those ideas.First of all, the Lockstep system itself is not a very difficult one to understand, but the book will keep throwing in factors that make the story increasingly more complicated. For instance, worlds that don't operate on the Lockstep schedule or are set at different intervals, or different characters in different contexts popping up and their ages are all over the place relative to Toby and his friends'. Whenever the author states how much time as passed (presumably in Lockstep time) or whenever a character goes to sleep and wakes up again during space travel, I would feel completely unbound from the story.Also, the creative plot line and world building notwithstanding, I found things were presented rather tepidly. I was drawn by the ideas in this novel and the intrigue of Toby's messed up family, but I was never made to feel truly excited about the story. I won't deny this might have also played into my overall uncertainty of the Lockstep premise. It's like my experience with hard sci-fi. While I don't really consider myself a big fan, I wouldn't say I mind hard sci-fi novels as long as they hook me somehow. It makes it easier for me to wrap my head around technobabble and the more complicated ideas. I think the same can be applied to Lockstep. But in this case the storytelling, while ambitious and inventive, just didn't really do it for me.So to sum things up, this book has a lot of great ideas and world building; it was probably worth reading just to be hit with the awesomeness of the Lockstep system and learn about its ins-and-outs. The story could have been written in a way to make it easier to understand, but the concept is still nothing short of incredible. My main issue with the book isn't so much that I found the Lockstep system confusing (like I said, that's my problem, not the book's) but the fact the story itself did not excite me. It's not like I didn't enjoy it, but I didn't love it either. Could it have been more? I think so. But still, not bad, not bad at all.