help me find this book
April 13, 2010 8:36 PM   Subscribe

Help me find this sci-fi book I read a while ago!

I know this might be a long shot, but I thought I would try anyway. From what I can remember, it was a trilogy, and each book was pretty thick; the whole thing was probably about as long as LotR. I had softcover copies, and I think one of them had an alien face on the cover, which looked a bit like ET.

I can only remember vague bits of the story, which I'll try to describe as coherently as I can here. It was set in the far future, and humans had settled on various planets in various galaxies, and evolved some telepathic ability (I think). I seem to recall a scene where two sisters are fooling around in space (they live on a large spaceship making a decades-long voyage) and communicating telepathically. A big part of the canon was the existence of colonies of humans which had, over the years, evolved into hive-like societies, living in tunnels and caves underground. I think these evolved (or devolved) humans might have been described as super pale, atrophied and mute.

I think one of the novels might have been set in the near future, and deals with how the hive colonies formed. I remember a bit where one of the protagonists, an ordinary guy John Doe type, stumbles across a hive-type colony underneath a cathedral, in France I think.

I know all this is really vague and barely coherent but I've been trying to remember this book for about 2 years now and still have no clue, so I'd be happy if anyone could give me any leads.
posted by Xianny to Grab Bag (4 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sounds a bit like Stephen Baxter's Coalescent, what with the whole "eusocial humans like naked mole rats" bit.
posted by adipocere at 8:52 PM on April 13, 2010


Could the near-future part be Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert? If so, other bit you remember is probably the Dune Trilogy.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:34 PM on April 13, 2010


Response by poster: yessssss it's coalescent! ask.mefi comes through yet again! thanks heaps adipocere!
posted by Xianny at 11:20 PM on April 13, 2010


I know you got it already, but a lot of those elements are also in Orson Scott Card's Ender series. Interesting how a lot of the same elements can be used to make completely different stories. I've never heard of Coalescent, but now I think I'll get that and read it. Thanks for asking this.
posted by CathyG at 6:40 AM on April 14, 2010


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