![Diaspora by [Egan, Greg]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41nAhZRf8YL._SX260_.jpg)
What an incredible book. I was intimidated at first and a little turned off by some of the reviews, but I am so glad I read this book as it is possibly my favorite sci-fi book ever. Yes, it is challenging and some of it I didn't understand, but its written in a way that you don't have to understand all of it to understand the story. It is probably necessary to have some basic knowledge of modern cosmological theories and AI speculation, and yes you will have to pay attention and think about some things, but that's part of the great pleasure of reading this book.
Diaspora is written in a mostly straightforward manner, but it almost feels avant garde just because the concepts are so mind-blowing and Greg Egan goes so far with them. This is a story of scientific discovery, of pushing the boundaries all the way, of surviving the ultimate catastrophe. Yes, the characters are not the focus of the story, and yet I felt more connected to them than characters in many other books. I wouldn't trade a single sentence in this book for more "character development". Greg Egan pushes the limits of the imagination so far that I was left speechless in awe and wonder at the worlds being described... which gave me a taste of what the characters might be experiencing, and thus I connected to them strongly.
His descriptions of universes with more dimensions than ours got me closer to being able to imagine those higher dimensions than anything else I've read. The way he imagines life on other planets stimulates my imagination beyond the traditional earth-bound imaginings of other books I've read. The AI and virtual reality settings blew so far past my usual thinking that just about anything else seems tame. This is what sci-fi should be, to my tastes - pushing the limits of imagination so far it overwhelms my connection to this reality and I end up fully absorbed in the world being created by the writer.
The biggest drawback to this book, for me, is that it has forever shifted my standards for appreciating sci-fi. Fortunately Greg Egan has written several other books, and I'm already looking forward to reading Diaspora again. This book is written for a particular kind of reader, and if you think you might be such a reader, read this book immediately!!!
- File Size: 2367 KB
- Print Length: 352 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
- Publisher: Greg Egan; 1 edition (July 28, 2013)
- Publication Date: July 28, 2013
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00E83YOEI
- Text-to-Speech:
Enabled
- Word Wise: Not Enabled
- Lending: Not Enabled
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#65,193 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #412 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction
- #617 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction
- #18354 in Kindle Store > Whispersync for Voice > Literature & Fiction
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