Diaspora (1997)

Ever since I read Permutation City, Egan has been one of my favorite hard sci-fi authors, and when I cracked open this book and saw that the first forty pages were a hardcore blow-by-blow of an AI becoming self- aware that would do Marvin Minsky proud, I knew that I would love it too. Brief plot synopsis: in the near future where humanity has trifurcated into AIs, sentient robots, and flesh-bound transhumans, an unexplained binary neutron star collision and subsequent gamma ray burst forces the remnants of civilization to colonize the galaxy in order to prevent such an extinction event from ever happening again. While Diaspora is of course filled with laugh-out-loud clumsy infodumps ("Say, can you tell me about your trans-universal particle physics model?" "Not until I brief you on hyperdimensional topology!"), it was also a surprisingly strong exploration of how humans – no matter if they're flesh and blood or sentient programs – cope with death and loss. I suppose that this is a common theme in Egan's works, and some of the AI characters do seem somewhat reprised from Permutation City, but Diaspora connects the deaths of individuals to the extinction of human life in a clever and meaningful way, and also ties that into personal and societal maturity (what happens when you want to simply stop exploring?) in a way that reminded me of Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad, which is high praise. Science fiction at its best uses both existing and imaginary technology to explore old human issues in new ways, and it's a shame Egan isn't more famous because he does that as well as anyone. ( )

This book is about AI and simulation and universes, but it is really about scale. Every few chapters, it zooms out to a meta level, making all of the existential fears and struggles of the previous level seem relatively meaningless. There are links throughout the book between the levels, and overall, it is amazing. There is some pretty weird physics and geometry at various points (fully explained, but very technical), which can be understood or not. There are some computer science and artificial life concepts which are much more implicit but also probably don't need to be fully understood to enjoy.

I don't think this is an ideal "my first Greg Egan novel", but it is pretty amazing. One criticism is the lack of inter-character conflict and development (it is all a struggle against "nature"), but it is still quite engaging. ( )

All the imaginary physics is tedious and adds nothing to the story. ( )

I am very safe in saying that this is one hell of an ambitious, dense, and thoroughly grounded novel of mind-blowing physics housed in one of the most hardcore hard-SF frames I've ever seen.

That's including Cixin Liu's recent trilogy.

I've read a lot of physics books for the sheer pleasure of it and I have a pretty good imagination, but when I was reading this particular novel, I was hard-pressed to keep up with the wall of information, exposition, and detailed descriptions of particle and quantum physics, theoretical frameworks, then more theoretical frameworks branching off the first, and then yet more in case we might have been getting used to the previously heavy load. :)

Am I complaining? No. Hell no. In fact, I'm frankly amazed and thrilled. The underlying story feels like a MORE coherent and theoretical run on Vinge's [b:A Fire Upon the Deep|77711|A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)|Vernor Vinge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333915005s/77711.jpg|1253374], delving much deeper into the possibilities brought up by [b:Contact|61666|Contact|Carl Sagan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1408792653s/61666.jpg|2416056], and it goes just about as far as you can go in transhumanism, ranging widely between regular humans, purely software/robot humans, and virtual polities within wide-umbrella AIs housing vast numbers of uploaded personalities.

The center of the galaxy went boom. It's the end of all life. Run. Run! Run!!!!! :) Vast number of years and high tech isn't enough to escape this.

What we have here is a full and vast adventure of exploration, discovery, and a mind-blowing physics reveal that not only lets the reader fall sideways through the universe and multiple dimensions, but it does it in an excellently ACCURATE direction (at least as far as we understand current physics).

The added realism is bolstered by a very excellent bibliography at the end and I can attest to the quality of at least three-quarters of them. :)

While this novel is NOT all that accessible to casual readers of SF, it IS extremely rewarding to those who are willing to sit through long theoretical (and not so theoretical) modern mind-blowing physics lessons. Is all the science necessary?

Hell yes, at least the way the plot requires them. :) This novel will not hand-hold anyone. And for that, my hat goes off. Much, much respect. :)

Oh, the novel makes me feel stupid, too. :) But that's okay. I've already sealed away a copy of it in a time capsule that will open in a thousand years for the enjoyment of our machine children with brains made of neutrinos who will have all the underpinning physics written into their bones.

:)
( )

Like all good science fiction, this novel pursues some interesting issues of philosophy and morality. It gets bogged down in long explanations of physics and technology (both real and fictitious). ( )