Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson. The way I found this book was a bit unusual. Half joking, I asked ChatGPT to recommend a book that combined a good understanding of history and science, and that wasn’t as disappointing as the one I had abandoned that morning. I wanted something more inspiring and substantial. The suggestion was Galileo’s Dream, and so far it has been an excellent read.
The novel begins with an intimate look at Galileo’s daily life as a university professor. He supports a household full of boarding students and family members, and much of his energy is spent trying to manage the constant financial strain that comes with keeping everyone fed and housed.
One day, a mysterious visitor from northern Europe approaches him. The man speaks Latin with a strange accent and hints at a new kind of investigation involving the geometry of light. This idea would soon lead to manufacturing a device that Galileo later calls the “occhialino,” or telescope. Galileo throws himself into the project and eventually succeeds in building the device. The device was already known in northern Europe, and Galileo improves upon it after hearing about it.
Not long after, the stranger returns and advises Galileo to increase the magnification of his instrument to about twenty or thirty times, suggesting he will find something extraordinary when he turns it toward the moon. Strangely, the stranger’s prediction proves remarkably accurate. Galileo soon realizes that magnification levels beyond thirty are difficult to achieve because of the physical limits of glassmaking and lens construction.
After further work, Galileo begins to observe Jupiter and discovers several small bodies orbiting the planet. He correctly identifies them as moons.
The story takes a fascinating turn when the mysterious stranger reappears in the middle of the night and somehow Galileo finds himself transported, or perhaps projected, to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. There he encounters a council of future humans who live throughout the Jovian system. These beings debate the ethics of interfering with the past and reveal that Galileo’s discoveries have a deep connection to their own future.
This blending of historical biography with high-concept science fiction is remarkably original. The novel becomes even more intriguing when we learn that Johannes Kepler, Galileo’s real-life contemporary in the 16th century, also received visits from the same stranger. Historically, Kepler did speculate that Jupiter might be inhabited after learning of Galileo’s discoveries, and Robinson builds on such historical details, transforming real scientific history into an imaginative narrative.
Eventually, it is revealed that the strangers and other inhabitants of the Jovian system are humans from a distant future, around the year AD 3000, who have developed time-travel technology. Their presence raises questions about destiny, progress, and how knowledge shapes the future of humanity.