| Farthest Star | |
| Cover Artist: | Philip Perlman |
| Author: | Frederik Pohl Jack Williamson |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Saga of Cuckoo |
| Publisher: | Ballantine Books |
| Release Date: | 1975 |
| Isbn: | 0-345-24330-7 |
| Oclc: | 073857 |
| Pages: | 246 |
| Followed By: | Wall Around a Star |
| Wall Around a Star | |
| Cover Artist: | David B. Mattingly |
| Author: | Frederik Pohl Jack Williamson |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Saga of Cuckoo |
| Publisher: | Del Rey Books |
| Release Date: | January 12, 1983 |
| Isbn: | 0-345-28995-1 |
| Oclc: | 9184254 |
| Pages: | 275 |
| Awards: | 1984 Locus Award - Best SF Novel (21st place) |
| Preceded By: | Farthest Star |
The Saga of Cuckoo is a series of science fiction novels by American writers Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson. It consists of two novels, Farthest Star and Wall Around a Star.
The books feature an interstellar teleporter that leaves the original being behind and sends only a duplicate. When a person is duplicated, the original can just pass out of the machine without a second thought. The copies also can be "edited" at destination.
Farthest Star was published by Ballantine Books in 1975,[1] as a fix-up of the 1973 novella "Doomship" and the 1974 serial "The Org's Egg".[2] In the novel, engineer Ben Charles Pertin is selected to be humanity's representative in a multi-race mission to reach "Object Lambda", a mysterious object traveling towards the galaxy at 1/6th lightspeed. Since the object is still approaching, Ben and the others are transported to the probeship Aurora by a matter duplication transporter. While the original goes on with his life, the duplicate (Ben James) and his Companion, Doc Chimp, work with the rest of the beings to construct a faster drone to get a transporter in orbit of the object, racing against time as the ionizing radiation from the ship's fusion drive is slowly killing them. After a struggle, the drone is successfully launched, killing all on board.
The drone performs as planned and an orbiting habitat called Cuckoo Station is constructed. A new duplicate arrives, Ben Linc.
See main article: Wall Around a Star.
Wall Around a Star was published by Del Rey Books on January 12, 1983. The cover art for the 1983 edition was done by David Mattingly.[3] In this novel linguist Jen Babylon is called on to translate alien records which may explain the nature of "Cuckoo", a sphere built around a star, and thus save the galaxy.[4]