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A review by thefourthvine
Distress by Greg Egan
4.0
If this book was made into a movie (and it will not be), the tagline could be: "We're theoretical cosmologists. We get it right or universes die." Because that's what this is: a suspenseful thriller based on physics, metaphysics, philosophy, and cosmology. Admit it, you're impressed.
So. In Distress, a disaffected science/pseudoscience journalist goes off for what should be a peaceful, easy assignment: a documentary on a physicist who is about to announce her Theory of Everything. Except, well, shit gets weird.
For the first quarter of the book, I didn't think I'd be giving it four stars. The opening scene is dynamite, but -- not really indicative of the kind of book it's going to be. And I found the relationship stuff (the narrator and his girlfriend) honestly repelling. And the discussion of autism -- that is a WHOLE other bucket of issues, and while the ending made me get why he thought he needed to include it, I think that was, at best, a bad idea.
But. BUT. Then the book started to gain momentum. Partly it was that the worldbuilding started to take hold. I loved the detailed near-future world; the science advances, the biology changes, the sex and gender stuff. (I'm reading so much hard SF with great, interesting, thoughtful takes on gender these days, like, what even HAPPENED to this genre? If two genders ("normal" and "sex object/plot device") were good enough for the grandmasters, they are surely good enough for you, Greg Egan and Kim Stanley Robinson and Chris Moriarty.) And then, while I was wallowing in the glee of the worldbuilding, the actual main plot kicked in and started accelerating and every neuron in my brain shrieked "YES! MORE!" in unison.
As it happens, I've read a number of books lately about singularities. This is the best portrayal I've seen of one. It was great and I enjoyed the hell out of it. This story is too much the kind of thing I like for me to recommend it to anyone else, but I can say this: if this is your kind of thing, this is REALLY REALLY your kind of thing.
So. In Distress, a disaffected science/pseudoscience journalist goes off for what should be a peaceful, easy assignment: a documentary on a physicist who is about to announce her Theory of Everything. Except, well, shit gets weird.
For the first quarter of the book, I didn't think I'd be giving it four stars. The opening scene is dynamite, but -- not really indicative of the kind of book it's going to be. And I found the relationship stuff (the narrator and his girlfriend) honestly repelling. And the discussion of autism -- that is a WHOLE other bucket of issues, and while the ending made me get why he thought he needed to include it, I think that was, at best, a bad idea.
But. BUT. Then the book started to gain momentum. Partly it was that the worldbuilding started to take hold. I loved the detailed near-future world; the science advances, the biology changes, the sex and gender stuff. (I'm reading so much hard SF with great, interesting, thoughtful takes on gender these days, like, what even HAPPENED to this genre? If two genders ("normal" and "sex object/plot device") were good enough for the grandmasters, they are surely good enough for you, Greg Egan and Kim Stanley Robinson and Chris Moriarty.) And then, while I was wallowing in the glee of the worldbuilding, the actual main plot kicked in and started accelerating and every neuron in my brain shrieked "YES! MORE!" in unison.
As it happens, I've read a number of books lately about singularities. This is the best portrayal I've seen of one. It was great and I enjoyed the hell out of it. This story is too much the kind of thing I like for me to recommend it to anyone else, but I can say this: if this is your kind of thing, this is REALLY REALLY your kind of thing.