Schild's Ladder
Ratings23
Average rating3.7
A wild ride through the far future by one of the world's most respected and acclaimed writers
Cass has stumbled on something that might be an entirely different type of physics, and she's travelled three hundred and fifty light-years to Mimosa Station, a remote experimental facility, to test her theory. The novo-vacuum she creates is predicted to begin decaying the instant it's created, but even so short-lived a microscopic speck could shed new light on the origins of the universe. But instead of decaying, Cass's novo-vacuum is wildly successful and begins expanding, slowly but inexorably taking over the universe...
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I came for the rigorous, mathematically-informed hard sci-fi that came up with a solution to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity and also invented an entirely new system of physics. I stayed for the surprisingly human musings on what it means to be YOU in a world where you can live (and change) forever, and also the optimistic speculations about the future of humanity (or what we might become).
The math/physics quickly lost me, but I really love Egan's far-future people and their moral dilemmas about what it means to be human. And the evolution of sex/gender makes me happy. Basically fantastic world-building, less fantastic plot, especially toward the end where things get so utterly weird it's hard to relate to anything. But also that's kind of the point, so. Solid Egan book, not my favorite of his but I still desperately want his vision of the future to come true.
The absolute best thing about this book is the eponymous concept: a way to ensure that, as you grow and change, you are still true to yourself.
