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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a very good book for anyone who loves large world building and concepts. I enjoyed it immensely. My only main criticism was the same as with the author's Ra - often the characters seemed to magically know things or make leaps of logic that didn't make sense to me. But otherwise this was a fascinating read.
Lots of interesting ideas, and I was pretty engaged, but it felt like it fell apart at the end. I don't regret reading it, but I read Valuable Humans or Antimimetics Division instead, I think.
adventurous
challenging
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It took me 3/4th of the book to fully understand the driving plot, one of of the best sci-fi novels I've read in years
fast-paced
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
qntm has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His stories are these high concept interesting ideas that have a weirdness, wtf-is-going-on to them, and there's so much thought put into them. I love it.
Anyway, Fine Structure is another web serial (which you can read for free at https://qntm.org/structure if you don't care to read it in paperback - either way, I recommend visiting for the FAQ once you're finished.). The story is non-linear and there are many threads that feel disconnected at the beginning but start to come together later in the book. It may feel like a series of short stories in some ways but that makes sense considering it's a web serial. I loved exploring the science behind the powers of a super human, and the idea of technologies and rules of science being selectively blocked from existence.
From the aforementioned FAQ:
Anyway, Fine Structure is another web serial (which you can read for free at https://qntm.org/structure if you don't care to read it in paperback - either way, I recommend visiting for the FAQ once you're finished.). The story is non-linear and there are many threads that feel disconnected at the beginning but start to come together later in the book. It may feel like a series of short stories in some ways but that makes sense considering it's a web serial. I loved exploring the science behind the powers of a super human, and the idea of technologies and rules of science being selectively blocked from existence.
From the aforementioned FAQ:
How come you're having to explain so much of this after the fact?
Because I'm evidently very bad at "dropping just enough hints to allow people to figure things out". Sometimes really minor stuff got picked up on, but I guess a lot of the clues I put in there were far too subtle and there is plenty which I just didn't bother to hint at at all, either because I forgot or because I decided it wasn't important enough.
Will these plot details be more apparent in a future "re-write" since you don't have to worry about crazed readers dissecting a chapter for years before the story is done?
Good heavens, yes. This is the only reason for there to be a re-write at all.
I actually had the impression that this was a collection of short stories at first, because the first few chapters are very disjointed. When I discovered it had been written as a series of blog posts (right?) it made a lot of sense.
While the writing itself could be cleaned up a little, including a few unnecessary/trailing plot points, the story and universe are fascinating enough to warrant a read anyway. It is definitely hard sci-fi, and seemingly unrelated details are neatly tied into a coherent world (hard to say more without spoilers).
While the writing itself could be cleaned up a little, including a few unnecessary/trailing plot points, the story and universe are fascinating enough to warrant a read anyway. It is definitely hard sci-fi, and seemingly unrelated details are neatly tied into a coherent world (hard to say more without spoilers).
The first thing you need to know about Sam Hughes’s Fine Structure is that it was originally serialized on the author’s webpage. That’s why (especially towards the beginning) the “chapters” are so all over the place. In a way, this isn’t a novel, but a series of short stories that take place in the same universe, with recurring characters, leading up to a denouement. Given all that, this is a _great_ book.
The basic idea is that there is a whole bunch of technology – ansibles, teleporters, replicators, warp drives, time machines – that should be possible theoretically, but isn’t. The experiments don’t work, or return screwy, inconsistent results. Or the experimenters die. Sometimes in grotesque ways. Also we have super-heroes for some reason? What works doesn’t make sense, and what ought to make sense doesn’t work. And somebody is responsible.
Fine Structure is a lovely ode to experimental science, and a fist-shaking-at-the-sky cry of rage at a universe that refuses to treat humans fairly. There are also discussions of how a skyscraper reacts to having someone punched through its long axis, how X-ray vision would really work, and the ennui of civilization construction and maintenance.
The basic idea is that there is a whole bunch of technology – ansibles, teleporters, replicators, warp drives, time machines – that should be possible theoretically, but isn’t. The experiments don’t work, or return screwy, inconsistent results. Or the experimenters die. Sometimes in grotesque ways. Also we have super-heroes for some reason? What works doesn’t make sense, and what ought to make sense doesn’t work. And somebody is responsible.
Fine Structure is a lovely ode to experimental science, and a fist-shaking-at-the-sky cry of rage at a universe that refuses to treat humans fairly. There are also discussions of how a skyscraper reacts to having someone punched through its long axis, how X-ray vision would really work, and the ennui of civilization construction and maintenance.