They give us a Dyson Sphere…and then they take it away! In their monstrous obligation never to introduce any real alterations into the ST universe…they show us a hint of something as wonderful as this…then just blow it up at the end.
Well, I’m not sure where Trinopus’ pillbox picture came from, but the canonical pictures of Castle Amber can be found in this book with a Zelazny co-writer credit.
Not that I would recommend it, really, but it’s better than the first bad example.
It’s not a big world compared to some of the universes that have been mentioned so far but it’s a fascinating one, full of places with creepily evocative names: the road where the silent ones walk, the mountain of the voice, the thing that nods and, most spooky of all, the house of silence.
It’s a difficult read. Hodgson’s style is extremely affected, to the point of being ridiculous and/or grating but the world he created haunts me to this day. That’s one way to fit the requirement of “bigness” IMHO.
I’ve got that book! Kinda fun. That’s the first place I saw the image of C.A. as an ugly squat pillbox. (Until then, in my imagination, I had always seen it as a vast fantasy castle with a million architectural follies!) I just found the image I linked to with a quick search, and chose the ugliest.
I love the joke (in that book) that there’s a guy in Amber whom everyone tolerates as a kook, who thinks he’s the author of the fictional series that everyone there is living in. Right, right, that’s nice, Roger. Here, have another beer.
The artist (Pyracantha/Hannah Shapero) told me to provide you with her email address if you’d like a print - let me know, and I can send you a PM with that address.
I’m popping in to mention the Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter. It starts a few nanoseconds after the Big Bang and continues to the end of baryonic life in the universe. A dyson sphere is a ping-pong ball compared to some of their structures.