A review by adamchalmers
Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

On one hand, the book has some amazing premises and big sci-fi ideas that I loved playing with. On the other hand, I didn't find the characters very compelling. A lot of the book revolves around the characters's internal thoughts, hopes and fears -- the typical Egan themes like "what does personal identity mean when you can edit your mind", "when are two people with the same history the same person" etc etc -- but I think previous books addressed this better. I thought this book's characters were having similar personal crises to the characters in Permutation City or Diaspora, but these characters weren't nearly as compelling and I found their existential crises somewhat boring.

Overall, it had some fun parts, and some ideas will stay with me, but I didn't enjoy it too much. I'll probably still read more novels by him based on the strength of Permutation City and Diaspora though.