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tasadion's review against another edition
2.0
Greg Egan's novels always have a great idea, which is inadequately supported by the plot; his latest effort is no exception. The idea is again wonderful, with a universe being consumed by another universe (growing at half the speed of light). The people in this far future novel have almost evolved beyond our ability to empathize with them, they interact using 'mediators' to translate and agree on interface parameters and cultural norms. There are worlds whose entire populations go into 'slow time' so that a single person can travel the universe and return without apparent time-debt. These are wonderful ideas but they are not supported by the writing, and ultimately the story gets a little bit silly. A worthy vision of the future, but I just didn't care...
shawnpconroy's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyable hard science fiction. It goes off on long descriptions of made up physics that many people say they've found intimidating. Being fluent in theoretical physics certainly makes this book easier to read. A science experiment creates a void that starts destroying the galaxy. Everyone tries to find out how to stop it.
(Before this I read Diaspora. That book is best read with a computer science degree if you want to get it fully. And I found the plot structure to be generally similar. Despite that, they are very different novels with very different settings.)
I think hard science fiction is a bit of a misnomer. It's hard as in difficult, but not hard as in taking fewer liberties with physics.
(Before this I read Diaspora. That book is best read with a computer science degree if you want to get it fully. And I found the plot structure to be generally similar. Despite that, they are very different novels with very different settings.)
I think hard science fiction is a bit of a misnomer. It's hard as in difficult, but not hard as in taking fewer liberties with physics.
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