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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
I saw this book in my recommendations on Scribd. I decided to give it a shot, even though Greg Egan is one of the authors who seems to make me feel ignorant and stupid. It's not his writing style, which is quite good. It's his SUBJECT matter. He picks wickedly complex and difficult things to write about, like light has no universal speed, or (as in this book) quantum mechanics and eigenstates and collapsing wave functions. O.O
This books starts out like a nice cyberpunk detective story. Then it gets... COMPLICATED. There are various mental/emotional mods that Nick, the ex-policeman protagonist has undergone. In the course of searching for a woman who has been somehow escaping from locked rooms, he's caught and modded AGAIN to be perfectly loyal to the company who'd kidnapped the woman. And then he finds out what they're researching, and how he can be a part of it and use their research.
All this takes place in a world where the whole Solar System has apparently been enclosed in a Bubble (the Quarantine of the title) because Reasons. Ok, that was cool, even though the idea of never seeing the stars again would be daunting and depressing. And then there's the whole utilizing a myriad of "selves" to solve a really problem and then collapsing them into one entity ("you," for some iteration of YOU) to continue and to use the solution. The question is: is the YOU who is using the solution to the problem the same YOU who stated the problem at the outset? How would you know? HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? is the question that kinda obsesses our protagonist. And what if the ability to do this quantum testing was available to everyone? Would there be any objective reality anymore?
Honestly, it kinda made my head spin. I kept thinking of Samuel Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley If you can't tell if you're the same person, how could it matter if you are or not??? But I admit up front that I am not a really deep thinker or student of physics. I read it all anyway, and admired the ideas and the kind of mind that could come up with a book like this.
Egan, like Charles Stross, is a writer that I enjoy reading, mostly. But I tend to come away from their books thinking that my view of the world is so totally simplistic that I must be really stupid not to see it as they do. But sometimes it's ok just to enjoy the ride even if you don't know exactly why anyone wants to GO there.
This books starts out like a nice cyberpunk detective story. Then it gets... COMPLICATED. There are various mental/emotional mods that Nick, the ex-policeman protagonist has undergone. In the course of searching for a woman who has been somehow escaping from locked rooms, he's caught and modded AGAIN to be perfectly loyal to the company who'd kidnapped the woman. And then he finds out what they're researching, and how he can be a part of it and use their research.
All this takes place in a world where the whole Solar System has apparently been enclosed in a Bubble (the Quarantine of the title) because Reasons. Ok, that was cool, even though the idea of never seeing the stars again would be daunting and depressing. And then there's the whole utilizing a myriad of "selves" to solve a really problem and then collapsing them into one entity ("you," for some iteration of YOU) to continue and to use the solution. The question is: is the YOU who is using the solution to the problem the same YOU who stated the problem at the outset? How would you know? HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? is the question that kinda obsesses our protagonist. And what if the ability to do this quantum testing was available to everyone? Would there be any objective reality anymore?
Honestly, it kinda made my head spin. I kept thinking of Samuel Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley If you can't tell if you're the same person, how could it matter if you are or not??? But I admit up front that I am not a really deep thinker or student of physics. I read it all anyway, and admired the ideas and the kind of mind that could come up with a book like this.
Egan, like Charles Stross, is a writer that I enjoy reading, mostly. But I tend to come away from their books thinking that my view of the world is so totally simplistic that I must be really stupid not to see it as they do. But sometimes it's ok just to enjoy the ride even if you don't know exactly why anyone wants to GO there.
This is exactly what you expect a book written by a mathematician to be. A living stereotype of Wigner's friend quantum mechanics explained to death.
The good side: the hard sci-fi concepts are really cool and interesting and the world building is awesome.
The bad side: sadly, the writer isn't experienced as a writer but he's using his books as a method to push his high flying concepts to people. The characters fall flat and I couldn't care much about the MC even though the book is written in first person and first person is supposed to make you root even for an unsympathetic character. Our MC feels a lot like a robot and honestly if they killed him and stuffed his brain in a jar I wouldn't have been bothered even a little.
Then another problem is that after he introduces his setting, the author goes skimming even more on character development by introducing new characters who read like one big single secondary guy/girl.
But the worst thing is that at some point the book derails completely into a mental experiment in quantum mechanics. You get this huge portion of the book where you just read pages and pages of logical derivations of the consequences of the quantum mechanical rules that were just introduced. Absolutely, this exercise is essential so that readers can follow how the setting rules will enforce what happens in act 3 of the book but the whole thing is so alienating and frankly tedious that I've read textbooks that are more exciting. At least textbooks have this habit leaving the exercise to the reader, habit which is sadly absent in this book.
The good side: the hard sci-fi concepts are really cool and interesting and the world building is awesome.
The bad side: sadly, the writer isn't experienced as a writer but he's using his books as a method to push his high flying concepts to people. The characters fall flat and I couldn't care much about the MC even though the book is written in first person and first person is supposed to make you root even for an unsympathetic character. Our MC feels a lot like a robot and honestly if they killed him and stuffed his brain in a jar I wouldn't have been bothered even a little.
Then another problem is that after he introduces his setting, the author goes skimming even more on character development by introducing new characters who read like one big single secondary guy/girl.
But the worst thing is that at some point the book derails completely into a mental experiment in quantum mechanics. You get this huge portion of the book where you just read pages and pages of logical derivations of the consequences of the quantum mechanical rules that were just introduced. Absolutely, this exercise is essential so that readers can follow how the setting rules will enforce what happens in act 3 of the book but the whole thing is so alienating and frankly tedious that I've read textbooks that are more exciting. At least textbooks have this habit leaving the exercise to the reader, habit which is sadly absent in this book.
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I've finished and I am exhausted and elated and confused and my brain is melted, but also maybe it grew a little? I don't know. What I do know is that I knew nothing about this book before and now I'm utterly obsessed and completely in love with it and the author.
I'm getting so behind on talking more in depth about the books that have absolutely blown my mind, but I will be back to this. Suffice to say this has been one of the most unique, exhilarating, and uniquely exquisite experiences I have ever had with a book.
A book like this is never going to win the bestest, most book ever award (like putting numbers and ribbons on art actually means anything anyway...), but this is without a doubt one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
I feel fundamentally changed and envigorated! I already likened the experience of reading this book and attempting to comprehend the concepts it explores as to coming up on class As, but this feels akin to a secular religious experience--I am changed, my perspective has changed, and I have a whole new areas of science, fiction, and science fiction I now know make my brain glow incandescently and melt, and I love that for me.
I am feeling so unbelievably inspired and have already started working on a TTRPG that translates eigenstates and wave forms into mechanics, unifying the dice the protagonist in the book, people in the world of the game, and players at the table...I think. Point is my brain is tingling and I'm inspired
Oh baybee! I have so much more incoherent, hyperfixated, autistic excitement to vent, but for now, spectacular book is spectacular!
I'm getting so behind on talking more in depth about the books that have absolutely blown my mind, but I will be back to this. Suffice to say this has been one of the most unique, exhilarating, and uniquely exquisite experiences I have ever had with a book.
A book like this is never going to win the bestest, most book ever award (like putting numbers and ribbons on art actually means anything anyway...), but this is without a doubt one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
I feel fundamentally changed and envigorated! I already likened the experience of reading this book and attempting to comprehend the concepts it explores as to coming up on class As, but this feels akin to a secular religious experience--I am changed, my perspective has changed, and I have a whole new areas of science, fiction, and science fiction I now know make my brain glow incandescently and melt, and I love that for me.
I am feeling so unbelievably inspired and have already started working on a TTRPG that translates eigenstates and wave forms into mechanics, unifying the dice the protagonist in the book, people in the world of the game, and players at the table...I think. Point is my brain is tingling and I'm inspired
Oh baybee! I have so much more incoherent, hyperfixated, autistic excitement to vent, but for now, spectacular book is spectacular!
Possibly the best explanation of quantum mechanics I've ever read in a SF book! I think I may actually understand eigenstates after this.
Весьма. Но все толковое начинается с середины книги.
И да, вот ее надо было назвать "Квантовый вор"...
И да, вот ее надо было назвать "Квантовый вор"...
Очень крутая идея с причиной ограничения человечества в границах наблюдения. Однако чуток подкачала реализация, так что 4.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
