Diaspora

I've been looking for a book like this for a long time. Anthropomorphism has always been a pretty pervasive feature of sf-- it makes for better drama, but really bad speculation. For once, the ideas described here aren't restrained by what people find familiar- the aliens aren't simply alternate earth biology, the human societies are actually more then just variances of what you'd read in a history book, the underlying science is as essential to the story as the events of the novel, and the storyline is about intellectual discovery, almost exclusively. Despite what some reviewers have written, the society the author describes clearly wasn't intended as a dystopia. Whether you see it as such depends on how you define human identity (the author, a programmer, seems to believe that the core of human identity is some sort of mathematically perfect function, and the rest is extraneous extrapolation-- I couldn't disagree more, but my own motivations have nothing to do with tissues and neurons (except as a means to an end), so I personally found the incorporeal society pretty cool). In any case, the idea is both plausible and interesting-- good speculation. If you read sci-fi for escapism, I wouldn't recommend this book-- it offers little in the way of relatable characters or drama, and the only fantasy it fulfills is that of a physicist or programmer. If, on the other hand, you read sci-fi for interesting ideas and speculation, then this book is a godsend, a breath of fresh air in a stale room.

Greg Egan is one of my favorite writers and one of the most popular authors of speculative fiction among the transhuman/extropian crowd. Diaspora may be his finest work to date, and that's saying a lot. The opening chapters give us a touching, even moving depiction of the earliest learning and orientation of an artificial intelligence, a digital being that only gradually becomes self-aware. From there, the book takes off onto a romp that will carry us across the galaxy, far into the future, and ultimately into alternate universes, some that exist with expanded dimensions! I'm neither a mathematician nor a scientist, and I'll admit that some of the long descriptions of multi-dimensional geometry and physics were a little over my head. But I found I was able to skim through those parts and still stay engaged with the story, the characters, and the spectacular ideas. Although this is speculative fiction at its most extreme, Egan has done his homework and keeps us believing that what he`s writing about is really possible. For lovers of hard SF, this is as good as it gets.

Diaspora has rapidly become one of my favourite books: here's why. A fabulous book, Diaspora is simply so dense, filled with invention, with mind-expanding discovery. At his worst, as in his disappointing recent mainstream sci-fi novel, Terranesia, Greg Egan can be overly didactic, dull and sluggish. But here, at his best, he can do what no other contemporary 'hard' science fiction writer can do: he can turn scientific speculation into sheer wonder. When he concentrates on letting loose this amazing flow of ideas, an almost stream-of-consciousness expanding of whole universes out of the tiniest and most unexpected cracks like endless fractal flowers, his writing can be an almost mystical experience, a celebration of what the human mind can conceive. Yet it does not rely simply on this stunning and fertile scientific speculation: Egan's characters are real; despite being virtual people, citizens of a computer polis, they are human, they grow, change and develop in comprehensible ways, even if their abilities and situation are beyond us. I have never come across another writer who can convincingly describe what it is like to see in five dimensions, and then equally comprehensibly portray the sheer emotional and physical shock of being restricted to three again. It is this combination of emotional maturity and ever unfolding wonder that makes Diaspora more like Attanasio's baroque masterpiece, Last Legends of Earth (another favourite of mine), than any other conventional hard sci-fi. Diaspora's only disappointment is that it has to end.

Imagine Asimov's whole Foundation series compressed in 400 pages. I bet you can't. Diaspora is a greater story, and still it fits in one standard paperback volume.Egan has no mercy toward the science-horrified types. Math and physics on the introductory graduate school level in a fiction? Yes, way to go! Finally, something for the educated readership. The author has actually studied the subjects he's talking about, and studied them well. The horrified crowd of literary critics can't even imagine that, they automatically assume that his knowledge should be as shallow as theirs. But you don't need to be a scientist to read this book, just keep an open mind and be prepared to use it.The ideas are so detailed and so well thought through that they all seem simply within reach. Diaspora picks up where Distress left off, and developes an alternative vision of the Universe, without any mentions of anthrocosmology. The original genderless pronouns make a comeback to describe asexual inhabitants of the virtual home in the real world.The characters are believable and real, solidly defined with just a few strokes of a master's pencil. The imagery is blindingly rich. Space travel at legal light-limited speeds, actual experiments of the quantum physics, existing mathematical theorems combine with alien worlds, galactic catastrophes and dual universes to create a saga of the humankind spanning billions of years in the future. The story defies cliches (someone was looking for a climax?) and proceeds at lightning pace through the confrontations between the universe and the people on a hot trail of a sister civilization to the perfect ending of which Lem definitely could be proud.

I have two favorite writers: Greg Egan who writes mostly science fiction and Cliff Pickover who writes mostly science. Diaspora is an amazing combination of both science and science fiction and contains some of the most mind-stretching concepts that you will ever encounter. Not only does Diaspora describe what life might be like in the future, it also discusses the ways in which we may manipulate higher dimensions and communicate with higher-dimensional beings. Cliff Pickover also discusses these topics in his book Surfing through Hyperspace, which I also highly recommend, but Egan, in some ways, goes further in his surreal explorations. I recommend this book, because your mind will be warped in wonderfully new ways as a result of your finishing it. You will think about "life" in new ways. You will understand that life need not be made of flesh and blood but can take on forms hardly imaginable before reading this book. If there are a few mathematically difficult areas of the book, don't worry. You can skim through them and still have your mind twisted and rearranged in ways that will make you a fuller human being.