我们以特别的热忱向国内读者推荐这篇出自美国科学家兼科幻作家大手笔的新作。像这类科幻作品--科学家借助科幻小说探索科学技术问题的作品,在国内科幻读物中还不多见。原因之一显然就是中国科学家似乎鲜有愿意提笔写科幻小说的。而在这篇小说中,我们除读到许多“写实式”的太空技术细节外,小说结构技巧也堪称娴熟。作者本人很谦虚,认为在人物性格刻画上差强人意。这话出自名家之口,实属难能可贵。我们特别感谢作者对我们的支持,将这篇佳作提供给本刊。我们在此推出本文,以飨读者,也盼望能早日见到出自中国科学家笔下的科幻作品! We are especially enthusiastic about recommending this latest work by American scientists and science fiction writers to domestic readers. Such science fiction works like this - scientists using science fiction to explore scientific and technological issues of the works in the domestic science fiction books are rare. One of the reasons apparently is that Chinese scientists seem rarely willing to write science fiction novels. In this novel, in addition to reading a lot of “realistic” space technology details, the novel structure skills are also adept. The author is very modest, thinking that personality characterization is far from satisfactory. Words from the mouth of the famous, it is commendable. We are particularly grateful to the author for his support, to provide this excellent work to this publication. We are here to launch this article to readers, but also look forward to see early sci-fi works by Chinese scientists!