Lady of Mazes

This book is not for the casual sci-fi reader. Karl Schroeder has an extremely vivid imagination and he has set up a complex, difficult-to-comprehend world. It is a challenge read, but just be patient and you will get out of this book what you put into it. Take time to contemplate the people and environments with which you're presented; not just what they look like, and how they work, but the values and culture they represent. If you put some thought into this book, you'll get a lot out of it.

Hoo-boy. That is kind of how you feel when you get deeper into this. It starts off reminiscent of John C. Wright's Golden Age, and force-multiplies itself by way of Greg Egan, Charles Stross' Accelerando and things like this. Set in the same place, with the same 3340 entity as Ventus. If you stop occasionally as small pieces of your mind melt, don't be surprised. An exploration of the nature of reality with respect to being human, when posthumans, AIs and others run around being able to almost do whatever they like. It starts with a girl's perceptions changed because of an accident, and she uncovers layer after layer and motivation after motivation of all the different powers in her world and those around it.

I picked this up since I had mildly enjoyed Schroeder's Ventus. It was much better than Ventus. It was easily the finest Sci-fi of 2005, in my limited experience. What I most admired was how well the plot resolved itself. It seems rare these days to find that quality in a book: a well-thought-out, clever plot. Most of the time, the author seems to throw up her hands towards the end, and turn to some deus ex machina to finish things up. Not so here. And the ideas are as mind-blowing as anything else out there. This author deserves far greater recognition. I hope he gets it. Looking forward to his new one, Sun of Suns.

I won't bother try to summarize the plot since it has been done and in the case of this book is very difficult to do. The action is hard to follow with so many layers of shifting reality, but it is worth it. This was an interesting book that I enjoyed greatly - too dense of a read to really be described as a page-turner, but thought-provoking in its exploration of how people search for ways to find meaning in their lives in a time and place when all sorts of things are possible.