''Convergence'' (1997) is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

novel in the

Heritage Universe Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physical ...

series by American writer

Charles Sheffield Charles Sheffield (25 June 1935 – 2 November 2002), an English-born mathematician, physicist and science-fiction writer, served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. ...

. This book is a sequel to ''

Transcendence Transcendence, transcendent, or transcendental may refer to: Mathematics * Transcendental number, a number that is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients * Algebraic element or transcendental element, an element of a field exten ...

''.

Plot

The book takes place millennia in the future with the same group of explorers introduced in the first two books of the series, ''

Summertide ''Summertide'' (1990) is a science fiction novel by American writer Charles Sheffield, the first of his series of Heritage Universe. The story takes place millennia in the future, with humans having extensively colonized our spiral arm of the ...

'' and ''

Divergence In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the quantity of the vector field's source at each point. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of t ...

''. After millions of years of apparent inaction, the Builder artifacts are changing quickly. After exploring several new artifacts, rediscovering the existence of a race thought to be dead for millennia, and finding that race's home planet in the midst of an enormous artifact, the adventures of this eclectic team become even stranger. In this book the characters explore several old artifacts to find that they have changed. These changes all seemed to be linked to a seemingly new artifact, which may affect the future of the entire

Orion Arm The Orion Arm is a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy that is across and approximately in length, containing the Solar System, including Earth. It is also referred to by its full name, the Orion–Cygnus Arm, as well as Local Arm, Orion ...

of the galaxy. The sequel to this book and series finale is ''

Resurgence Resurgence may refer to: *Resurgence (spring), spring discharge, where water comes from the ground *Resurgence (pest) of (usually agricultural) pests, due for example, to the misuse of pesticides *Resurgence (Dutch Revolt), the period between 157 ...

''. 1997 American novels Novels by Charles Sheffield 1997 science fiction novels Baen Books books {{1990s-sf-novel-stub