The Thing Itself

The Ding an Sich... The three star rating is a temporary rating because this book will definitely need some pondering and possibly a reread or two.I have to admit to getting lost in the philosophical discussions and the several threads didn't help the flow of the novel for me personally. Everything tied up neatly at the end (I think) but this wasn't an easy book by any means.

Short Review: This is one of those philosophically oriented sci-fi books. I don't know enough Kant to fully appreciate the book. But I enjoyed it. About the first 1/3 is supposed to not really make sense. But then it starts pulling the threads together. At some point I will read a book on Kant and then come back and read this one again.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-thing-itself-by-adam-roberts/

I am constantly bemoaning the lack of literary SFF, any speculative fiction, horror especially, that tries to grapple with bigger questions than ‘cool magic system' and ‘but what if the hero was actually... a bad guy'. I only ask for a crumb, really, just tiny evidence of forethought.

Adam Roberts has provided me with a philosophical feast, replete with complex and nuanced ideas about the nature of human love, God, indifference, and how we approach the universe. The solution to the Fermi paradox was not the friends we made along the way; perhaps the answer is that we are the aliens, because we make painful, artificial divisions between each other, and so we will never truly be able to reach farther than our own front gardens.

No review will do this book justice. The esteem I feel for it, like our limited perception of the universe, is limitless.