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meedamian's review against another edition
4.0
The story in itself was quite interesting, but I have a few issues with this book that were quite frustrating.
I've tried writing below without revealing anything of any importance, but there are still some vouge comments on the structure, so if you really don't want to know absolutely anything, this is where you should stop reading my review.
The first one is just the sheer amount of technobabble. And that comes from a person who actually enjoys detailed explainations. And I can appreciate when books start with accurate known science, but then extrapolate it into fiction. Here it was just too much, and too nonsensical.
Second is very similar to 1st, but I feel it deserve its own point. Some things are really goofy - particles encoding first letters of English words using binary asci codes - really?
Third, this one is less of an issue, just a peculiarity. This book seems to have two endings. I was listening to an audio version, and after a few chapters it seems like all threads are closed, goodbyes are said and it's a decent end. But then the book goes on for many more chapters. Can't complain, just weird
I've tried writing below without revealing anything of any importance, but there are still some vouge comments on the structure, so if you really don't want to know absolutely anything, this is where you should stop reading my review.
The first one is just the sheer amount of technobabble. And that comes from a person who actually enjoys detailed explainations. And I can appreciate when books start with accurate known science, but then extrapolate it into fiction. Here it was just too much, and too nonsensical.
Second is very similar to 1st, but I feel it deserve its own point. Some things are really goofy - particles encoding first letters of English words using binary asci codes - really?
Third, this one is less of an issue, just a peculiarity. This book seems to have two endings. I was listening to an audio version, and after a few chapters it seems like all threads are closed, goodbyes are said and it's a decent end. But then the book goes on for many more chapters. Can't complain, just weird
timinbc's review against another edition
4.0
Wow! Don't even THINK of reading this book unless you consider yourself a solid fan of HARD sf. Some high-school or college physics or astrophysics and a LOT of reading since then would be good too. This is chewy stuff.
Sub-atomic physics (as of 1997), virtual bodies, wormholes, cloning, a time-scale that is mostly in hundreds then thousands of years and then just gets silly .... multiple universes, deaths of galaxies ... this makes Olaf Stapledon look like a sissy.
And yet there are some reasonably believable characters tying all this together.
I enjoyed it, but perhaps I won't rush to read all of Egan's other novels. I have a bunch of his short stories queued up, and I understand he's very, very good at that, so I'll go there next.
Sub-atomic physics (as of 1997), virtual bodies, wormholes, cloning, a time-scale that is mostly in hundreds then thousands of years and then just gets silly .... multiple universes, deaths of galaxies ... this makes Olaf Stapledon look like a sissy.
And yet there are some reasonably believable characters tying all this together.
I enjoyed it, but perhaps I won't rush to read all of Egan's other novels. I have a bunch of his short stories queued up, and I understand he's very, very good at that, so I'll go there next.
timinbc's review against another edition
2.0
Sorry, mate, I've been able to get a bit of a grip on some of your hard-hard-hard-SF stuff, but you lost me on this one. I was OK with Miéville's The City and the City, but this is the same only sixfold with a wild card. It's good to posit a scenario and then examine how we might research a problem in that scenario, but your reader has to have some clue.
If you've played the "Disco Elysium" game maybe you'll see a similarity -- you spend more than half your time trying to work out what the hell is going on here.
If you've played the "Disco Elysium" game maybe you'll see a similarity -- you spend more than half your time trying to work out what the hell is going on here.
poiv8's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-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
2.25
It was a painful read. The story is not engaging, most characters have no depth.
Programs floating in space are not relatable characters. There is a chapter about new species of humans that was quite interesting, I would have loved to read more about it.
Only hypothetical science seems to matter. This one is not for me.
I did like Ceres and Vesta of Greg Egan, so I'll try another book of his next time.
Only hypothetical science seems to matter. This one is not for me.
I did like Ceres and Vesta of Greg Egan, so I'll try another book of his next time.
lotak's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
rssulliv's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
frasersimons's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
This is a much more successful book, in my eyes, than Blood Music. There is so much more hard science, and the extrapolation so far ahead, that the science does actually buttress the ideas, and are just more interesting to me, personally. Although, again, this is not cyberpunk, it is very squarely post humanism. Egan’s strengths, as one would somewhat expect of the subgenre and time of writing, is in the ideas conveyed, rather than plot, pacing, and characters.
It really depends on how interested the reader is in post humanism and how familiar (or willing) they are to consume a lot of terms and jargon specific to the ideas. I had to Google a lot of them. But I didn’t mind because it was engaging. Books labelled as hard scifi nowadays are not nearly as dense as this, so I imagine this as more niche than his other works.
I only attempted this because I owned it and have my cyberpunk ongoing reading project. I think a lot of works are labelled incorrectly in the subgenre solely based on a few tropes being present, and not assembled altogether. The most predominate is if something has anything like cyberspace, it seems like people just decided it was cyberpunk. Baffling, but seems like the only through line I can see with so many mislabelled in the subgenre, including this and Blood Music. It’s one of the most prevalent consumerists who decided a subgenre was present in a book based on style or nebulous other attributes, rather than was it was codified as.
It really depends on how interested the reader is in post humanism and how familiar (or willing) they are to consume a lot of terms and jargon specific to the ideas. I had to Google a lot of them. But I didn’t mind because it was engaging. Books labelled as hard scifi nowadays are not nearly as dense as this, so I imagine this as more niche than his other works.
I only attempted this because I owned it and have my cyberpunk ongoing reading project. I think a lot of works are labelled incorrectly in the subgenre solely based on a few tropes being present, and not assembled altogether. The most predominate is if something has anything like cyberspace, it seems like people just decided it was cyberpunk. Baffling, but seems like the only through line I can see with so many mislabelled in the subgenre, including this and Blood Music. It’s one of the most prevalent consumerists who decided a subgenre was present in a book based on style or nebulous other attributes, rather than was it was codified as.
opalreadsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
5.0
satedbuffalo's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75