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Orthogonal #2
The Eternal Flame
Greg Egan’s The Clockwork Rocket introduced readers to an exotic universe where the laws of physics are very different from our own, where the speed of light varies in ways Einstein would never allow, and where intelligent life has evolved in unique and fascinating ways. Now Egan continues his epic tale of alien beings embarked on a desperate voyage to save their world . . . .
The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations–and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits.
When the astronomer Tamara discovers the Object, a meteor whose trajectory will bring it within range of the Peerless, she sees a risky solution to the fuel crisis. Meanwhile, the biologist Carlo searches for a better way to control fertility, despite the traditions and prejudices of their society. As the scientists clash with the ship’s leaders, they find themselves caught up in two equally dangerous revolutions: one in the sexual roles of their species, the other in their very understanding of the nature of matter and energy.
The Eternal Flame lights up the mind with dazzling new frontiers of physics and biology, as only Greg Egan could imagine them.
The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations–and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits.
When the astronomer Tamara discovers the Object, a meteor whose trajectory will bring it within range of the Peerless, she sees a risky solution to the fuel crisis. Meanwhile, the biologist Carlo searches for a better way to control fertility, despite the traditions and prejudices of their society. As the scientists clash with the ship’s leaders, they find themselves caught up in two equally dangerous revolutions: one in the sexual roles of their species, the other in their very understanding of the nature of matter and energy.
The Eternal Flame lights up the mind with dazzling new frontiers of physics and biology, as only Greg Egan could imagine them.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2012
About the author
Greg Egan
250 books2,505 followersGreg Egan specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind transfer, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism over religion.
He is a Hugo Award winner (and has been shortlisted for the Hugos three other times), and has also won the John W Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. Some of his earlier short stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror, while due to his more popular science fiction he is known within the genre for his tendency to deal with complex and highly technical material (including inventive new physics and epistemology) in an unapologetically thorough manner.
Egan is a famously reclusive author when it comes to public appearances, he doesn't attend science fiction conventions, doesn't sign books and there are no photos available of him on the web.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
He is a Hugo Award winner (and has been shortlisted for the Hugos three other times), and has also won the John W Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. Some of his earlier short stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror, while due to his more popular science fiction he is known within the genre for his tendency to deal with complex and highly technical material (including inventive new physics and epistemology) in an unapologetically thorough manner.
Egan is a famously reclusive author when it comes to public appearances, he doesn't attend science fiction conventions, doesn't sign books and there are no photos available of him on the web.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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June 23, 2019
From The Clockwork Rocket
How to Talk to Girls, part 94: Greg Egan books
- What's that you're reading?
- The Eternal Flame. Second volume in the Orthogonal series, by Greg Egan.
- Science fiction?
- It certainly is.
- I like science-fiction too. My favourite SF author is--
- See, lots of these people call themselves science-fiction authors but they're straight-up lying. There's no science in their books. They're just fantasy novels with some sciency words in them.
- Well, I don't know. I mean, Isaac Asimov--
- Isaac Asimov??? You're kidding, right? Like, to take the first example that comes into my head, Fantastic Voyage. He gets the biology wrong, he gets the quantum mechanics wrong, where do I start?
- Look, Fantastic Voyage was based on a movie. I--
- Greg Egan would never have stooped so low. You could have offered him a million dollars to write a dumb movie tie-in, he wouldn't have cared. He takes biology and quantum mechanics seriously.
- Okay, like how?
- See, in Orthogonal he's created this whole universe, all the science is done right, it's world-building like other SF authors couldn't even dream of. His aliens--
- What are they called?
- Uh, now you mention it he never says. But that's kind of authentic. To them, they're people, so when he tells the story in English they call themselves people. But they're not people like us at all, they're sort of giant amoeba-like things except that they have two genders.
- How can amoebas have two genders?
- He's thought of all the details. They're not unicellular or anything, but they still reproduce by fission. That's where the feminism comes in. You see--
- Did you say feminism?
- Absolutely, there's this really strong feminist thread in the book. The females are the ones who fission, but when they do that it destroys their brains. See, they pair-bond, and after mating the male looks after the offspring. So a woman has this awful dilemma. If she fissions, her genes will carry on living, there's no reason why they can't go on doing that forever in fact, but her mind will die. So she's terribly conflicted.
- Can women decide not to have sex and stop themselves from fissioning?
- No, if they wait too long they fission spontaneously, and that's worse, because then there's no man to look after her offspring. But they've discovered this drug which inhibits fission, and some women take it except that on the home planet it's illegal, because their society is male-dominated. So--
- This actually does sound quite interesting. Can he write too?
- Uh, not really. But it doesn't matter, the science is what it's about. If you thought the biology was good, just wait until you hear about the physics. See, the basic premise is that space-time is Euclidean, like the proper distance between two points in 4-space is given by ds² = dx² + dy² + dz² + dt². No minus sign, no hyperbolic geometry. So--
- Is that important?
- Important? You're kidding, right? To start off with, special relativity works the other way round. You have time expansion instead of time dilation for moving objects, so the multigeneration starship is going to take hundreds of years of subjective time to make the round trip, but back on the home planet only a few years will have passed.
- I don't quite see. Why time expansion?
- Look, it's obvious. Euclidean metric, so a straight line is the shortest interval between two points rather than the longest one as in our universe.
- Uh--
- Just do the math. We haven't got to the best bits yet. So to start with, obviously the speed of light can't be a fixed constant since we don't have a Minkowski metric. But the first really cool revelation is that the wavelength of light in 4-space is constant! That means there's a maximum possible 3-space frequency and maximum possible 3-space wavelength and the velocity of the light depends on both of them. But of course frequency and wavelength aren't related by the Planck formula, and one thing that's a bit confusing at first is that light at the infrared end of the spectrum has most energy, because you see that's the light whose 4-vector is pointing straight into the future.
- Wait, I--
- But that's nothing compared to the quaternions. Since spacetime is Euclidean, quaternions describe spacetime transformations in a natural way, so the aliens figure them out very early on. It's, like, totally basic to their math. And when they discover quantum mechanics, they make this amazing discovery: quaternions are spinors too! You can see Greg Egan was so pleased when he realised this, he's even got an appendix explaining all the details. It is totally the highpoint of the book.
- You are the most interesting person I have ever met. Come back to my place right now and have sex with me.
- When I've finished this chapter.
- Okay.
FULL DISCLOSURE: so far, I have only tried this method on one girl. It worked really well up to the point where I persuaded her to take her clothes off and get into bed with me, but maybe I overshot, because she fell asleep before anything happened. Next time, I think that's where I should stop talking about Greg Egan.
To The Arrows of Time
How to Talk to Girls, part 94: Greg Egan books
- What's that you're reading?
- The Eternal Flame. Second volume in the Orthogonal series, by Greg Egan.
- Science fiction?
- It certainly is.
- I like science-fiction too. My favourite SF author is--
- See, lots of these people call themselves science-fiction authors but they're straight-up lying. There's no science in their books. They're just fantasy novels with some sciency words in them.
- Well, I don't know. I mean, Isaac Asimov--
- Isaac Asimov??? You're kidding, right? Like, to take the first example that comes into my head, Fantastic Voyage. He gets the biology wrong, he gets the quantum mechanics wrong, where do I start?
- Look, Fantastic Voyage was based on a movie. I--
- Greg Egan would never have stooped so low. You could have offered him a million dollars to write a dumb movie tie-in, he wouldn't have cared. He takes biology and quantum mechanics seriously.
- Okay, like how?
- See, in Orthogonal he's created this whole universe, all the science is done right, it's world-building like other SF authors couldn't even dream of. His aliens--
- What are they called?
- Uh, now you mention it he never says. But that's kind of authentic. To them, they're people, so when he tells the story in English they call themselves people. But they're not people like us at all, they're sort of giant amoeba-like things except that they have two genders.
- How can amoebas have two genders?
- He's thought of all the details. They're not unicellular or anything, but they still reproduce by fission. That's where the feminism comes in. You see--
- Did you say feminism?
- Absolutely, there's this really strong feminist thread in the book. The females are the ones who fission, but when they do that it destroys their brains. See, they pair-bond, and after mating the male looks after the offspring. So a woman has this awful dilemma. If she fissions, her genes will carry on living, there's no reason why they can't go on doing that forever in fact, but her mind will die. So she's terribly conflicted.
- Can women decide not to have sex and stop themselves from fissioning?
- No, if they wait too long they fission spontaneously, and that's worse, because then there's no man to look after her offspring. But they've discovered this drug which inhibits fission, and some women take it except that on the home planet it's illegal, because their society is male-dominated. So--
- This actually does sound quite interesting. Can he write too?
- Uh, not really. But it doesn't matter, the science is what it's about. If you thought the biology was good, just wait until you hear about the physics. See, the basic premise is that space-time is Euclidean, like the proper distance between two points in 4-space is given by ds² = dx² + dy² + dz² + dt². No minus sign, no hyperbolic geometry. So--
- Is that important?
- Important? You're kidding, right? To start off with, special relativity works the other way round. You have time expansion instead of time dilation for moving objects, so the multigeneration starship is going to take hundreds of years of subjective time to make the round trip, but back on the home planet only a few years will have passed.
- I don't quite see. Why time expansion?
- Look, it's obvious. Euclidean metric, so a straight line is the shortest interval between two points rather than the longest one as in our universe.
- Uh--
- Just do the math. We haven't got to the best bits yet. So to start with, obviously the speed of light can't be a fixed constant since we don't have a Minkowski metric. But the first really cool revelation is that the wavelength of light in 4-space is constant! That means there's a maximum possible 3-space frequency and maximum possible 3-space wavelength and the velocity of the light depends on both of them. But of course frequency and wavelength aren't related by the Planck formula, and one thing that's a bit confusing at first is that light at the infrared end of the spectrum has most energy, because you see that's the light whose 4-vector is pointing straight into the future.
- Wait, I--
- But that's nothing compared to the quaternions. Since spacetime is Euclidean, quaternions describe spacetime transformations in a natural way, so the aliens figure them out very early on. It's, like, totally basic to their math. And when they discover quantum mechanics, they make this amazing discovery: quaternions are spinors too! You can see Greg Egan was so pleased when he realised this, he's even got an appendix explaining all the details. It is totally the highpoint of the book.
- You are the most interesting person I have ever met. Come back to my place right now and have sex with me.
- When I've finished this chapter.
- Okay.
FULL DISCLOSURE: so far, I have only tried this method on one girl. It worked really well up to the point where I persuaded her to take her clothes off and get into bed with me, but maybe I overshot, because she fell asleep before anything happened. Next time, I think that's where I should stop talking about Greg Egan.
To The Arrows of Time
August 6, 2019
Okay. Full disclosure. I'm more thrilled about the actual math and the scientific discoveries inside this novel based in a universe where light doesn't have a speed-limit than any of the actual writing.
Storytelling? Huh? What's that? Oh, yeah, there were a lot of good parts about feminism in alien biologies that seems rather on point. You know, fissioning your female into four kids but losing your mind and identity, having your male take care of the kids. Always fatal. I did like those sequences where the scientists try to solve it and buck the male-run system by postponing the fission and/or trying to, you know, STAY ALIVE. That took up a lot of the story and it was super easy to follow.
The OTHER part of the novel is what I'm raving about even though I have no idea what the hell went on. Like, almost at all. I mean, page after page after page of wavelength, free radicals in troughs, photons bouncing, near-limitless energy propagation, even about how time expands, reverses the effect we know, turning a little trip on its head from what we know. Generations pass in a ship but only a few years pass on the home planet? ODD! :)
But this will be interesting when these science-types all get back home.
So weird. So much jibber-jabber about high-science, diagrams, fully-fleshed out cosmology and physics and light-propagation. Based on REAL MATH, people. It's completely freaking incomprehensible to read, and yet it's thrown into a novel, fait-accompli, for us to ooh and ahhh over.
And I do. Ooh and ahhh. :) This is the highest rating I'll ever give to an incomprehensible novel. :) Full props for the ideas, but damn about the writing. :)
Storytelling? Huh? What's that? Oh, yeah, there were a lot of good parts about feminism in alien biologies that seems rather on point. You know, fissioning your female into four kids but losing your mind and identity, having your male take care of the kids. Always fatal. I did like those sequences where the scientists try to solve it and buck the male-run system by postponing the fission and/or trying to, you know, STAY ALIVE. That took up a lot of the story and it was super easy to follow.
The OTHER part of the novel is what I'm raving about even though I have no idea what the hell went on. Like, almost at all. I mean, page after page after page of wavelength, free radicals in troughs, photons bouncing, near-limitless energy propagation, even about how time expands, reverses the effect we know, turning a little trip on its head from what we know. Generations pass in a ship but only a few years pass on the home planet? ODD! :)
But this will be interesting when these science-types all get back home.
So weird. So much jibber-jabber about high-science, diagrams, fully-fleshed out cosmology and physics and light-propagation. Based on REAL MATH, people. It's completely freaking incomprehensible to read, and yet it's thrown into a novel, fait-accompli, for us to ooh and ahhh over.
And I do. Ooh and ahhh. :) This is the highest rating I'll ever give to an incomprehensible novel. :) Full props for the ideas, but damn about the writing. :)
July 3, 2021
I'm not sure anyone without a BSc in physics (or equivalent level of knowledge) is gonna get what's going on here, as three aliens in a universe where space and time are indistinguishable, repeat the equivalent of the work of Einstein, Rutherford, Bohr, Schrodinger, Pauli and Dirac, invent the laser and laser-powered rocket, all in a few years! Still, even if you just skimmed all the technical stuff, there's a good story here, about science, gender, politics and trying to save the world with finite resources.
July 23, 2014
I finished The Eternal Flame by Greg Egan and it was excellent; maybe not as groundbreaking as The Clockwork rocket but a top 10 of mine (kind of in my 2nd tier now at around 4-9); there was no dominant character like Yalda and the universe is now familiar, but still lots of great stuff and I am really curious where it will go in volume 3 (Mr Egan gave a hint in a comment to his blog post on FBC when asked a question by someone).
Quantum mechanics, antimatter and new biology; lots of diagrams, some good interpersonal conflict and a great ending again, though this time a bit less emotional than in The Clockwork rocket
Full rv below:
INTRODUCTION: Last year Greg Egan started the Orthogonal Universe trilogy with the groundbreaking novel The Clockwork Rocket which combined highly advanced natural philosophy speculation - a very detailed Riemannian universe in which there is no special time dimension, though locality and thermodynamics actually impose a quasi-arrow of time on any collection of organized matter - with an intriguing alien race, shape-shifters and with a weird biology - both of these following from the nature of the universe - but quite similar in some ways with us too, this last speculation - beings that have science and try to understand and manipulate their universe being similar with us to a large extent - very well argued for example by famous physicist David Deutsch in his awesome The Beginning of Infinity.
While Mr. Egan has written extraordinary sf before - the novelization of General Relativity in Incandescence just the latest example before last year - The Clockwork Rocket had the added dimensions of great characters, most notably in the lead female physicist Yalda, and of an emotional ending that stayed with me for a long time.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Eternal Flame is the second book of the trilogy and takes place several generations after Yalda's time, on the mountain top that became the starship Peerless, currently in Orthogonal space and far away from home.
Being in Orthogonal space means of course that no time passes on the home-world, however long Peerless stays there, hence the strange to us idea that their long ago ancestors from the home-world are still alive at "present", while people on Peerless are born and die, generation after generation, while they try to solve a few monumental problems, most notably being the reason d'etre of Peerless, namely how to save the home world from the imminent - in cosmic time of course - collision with large amounts of Orthogonal matter, stuff that in very small quantities produced devastation and mayhem for no clearly understood reasons for now.
For the biology of the characters and the choices and limitations imposed on their society by it, I refer to my review of The Clockwork Rocket above or to the author's website, with the main point being that reproduction happens by division of the mother into two pairs of opposite gender "twins" called "co's", while the father (generally but not always her co) and usually the grandfather (the life span of males tends to cover two generations) take care of the children, so the phrase "knowing your mother" is a metaphor for an utter impossibility.
While there are exceptions and finer points (eg Yalda was a single with no co of her own, though she had two co-siblings) and females can extend their life span by taking an inhibitory drug, holin, usually its effect attenuates with age and the chances of spontaneous (with no father for the children) fission increase considerably...
The cast of The Eternal Flame is comparable to the one in The Clockwork Rocket, but here there are three main characters whose research, action and personal struggles are the focus of the novel:
Carla, the spiritual descendant of Yalda and the leading theoretical physicist of her time, Carlo, her co and a biologist who abandoned reproduction research for trying to increase the food production only to ask his former coworkers to take him back as he deems himself a failure in agronomy and Tamara, an astronomer and pilot whose impossible dreams of being the one to guide back Peerless to the home world may find an expression in the exploration of a mysterious flying object that comes closer to the starship, but whose very traditionalist farmer co and father, Tamaro and Erminio may have other ideas...
In other important roles, we have Patrizia, Carla's best student, Amanda, Carlo's main research colleague and friend, Silvano, a politician and family friend of Carla and Carlo and Onesto, a physics student of Carla who finds himself better suited for the philosophy of science than for pure research.
At the start of The Eternal Flame, the inhabitants try to solve some major internal problems like overpopulation and manufacturing fuel or a new engine to return home, when the mysterious object assumed to consist of Orthogonal matter is spotted and an expedition to investigate is planned. And so it starts, while when it ends things will be quite different from before.
Quantum mechanics, antimatter and new biology; lots of diagrams, some good interpersonal conflict and a great ending again, though this time a bit less emotional than in The Clockwork Rocket. As much of the fun of the novel consists in following the investigations of the characters about the nature of their universe and of their species, I will just conclude with this quote that perfectly summarizes both the philosophy of the series and why sf is still the most interesting genre of today:
"Onesto said, “Imagine the time, a dozen generations from now, when wave mechanics powers every machine and everyone takes it for granted. Do you really want them thinking that it fell from the sky, fully formed, when the truth is that they owe their good fortune to the most powerful engine of change in history: people arguing about science.”
Overall The Eternal Flame is another outstanding novel from the author and a top 10 of mine for 2012!
Quantum mechanics, antimatter and new biology; lots of diagrams, some good interpersonal conflict and a great ending again, though this time a bit less emotional than in The Clockwork rocket
Full rv below:
INTRODUCTION: Last year Greg Egan started the Orthogonal Universe trilogy with the groundbreaking novel The Clockwork Rocket which combined highly advanced natural philosophy speculation - a very detailed Riemannian universe in which there is no special time dimension, though locality and thermodynamics actually impose a quasi-arrow of time on any collection of organized matter - with an intriguing alien race, shape-shifters and with a weird biology - both of these following from the nature of the universe - but quite similar in some ways with us too, this last speculation - beings that have science and try to understand and manipulate their universe being similar with us to a large extent - very well argued for example by famous physicist David Deutsch in his awesome The Beginning of Infinity.
While Mr. Egan has written extraordinary sf before - the novelization of General Relativity in Incandescence just the latest example before last year - The Clockwork Rocket had the added dimensions of great characters, most notably in the lead female physicist Yalda, and of an emotional ending that stayed with me for a long time.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Eternal Flame is the second book of the trilogy and takes place several generations after Yalda's time, on the mountain top that became the starship Peerless, currently in Orthogonal space and far away from home.
Being in Orthogonal space means of course that no time passes on the home-world, however long Peerless stays there, hence the strange to us idea that their long ago ancestors from the home-world are still alive at "present", while people on Peerless are born and die, generation after generation, while they try to solve a few monumental problems, most notably being the reason d'etre of Peerless, namely how to save the home world from the imminent - in cosmic time of course - collision with large amounts of Orthogonal matter, stuff that in very small quantities produced devastation and mayhem for no clearly understood reasons for now.
For the biology of the characters and the choices and limitations imposed on their society by it, I refer to my review of The Clockwork Rocket above or to the author's website, with the main point being that reproduction happens by division of the mother into two pairs of opposite gender "twins" called "co's", while the father (generally but not always her co) and usually the grandfather (the life span of males tends to cover two generations) take care of the children, so the phrase "knowing your mother" is a metaphor for an utter impossibility.
While there are exceptions and finer points (eg Yalda was a single with no co of her own, though she had two co-siblings) and females can extend their life span by taking an inhibitory drug, holin, usually its effect attenuates with age and the chances of spontaneous (with no father for the children) fission increase considerably...
The cast of The Eternal Flame is comparable to the one in The Clockwork Rocket, but here there are three main characters whose research, action and personal struggles are the focus of the novel:
Carla, the spiritual descendant of Yalda and the leading theoretical physicist of her time, Carlo, her co and a biologist who abandoned reproduction research for trying to increase the food production only to ask his former coworkers to take him back as he deems himself a failure in agronomy and Tamara, an astronomer and pilot whose impossible dreams of being the one to guide back Peerless to the home world may find an expression in the exploration of a mysterious flying object that comes closer to the starship, but whose very traditionalist farmer co and father, Tamaro and Erminio may have other ideas...
In other important roles, we have Patrizia, Carla's best student, Amanda, Carlo's main research colleague and friend, Silvano, a politician and family friend of Carla and Carlo and Onesto, a physics student of Carla who finds himself better suited for the philosophy of science than for pure research.
At the start of The Eternal Flame, the inhabitants try to solve some major internal problems like overpopulation and manufacturing fuel or a new engine to return home, when the mysterious object assumed to consist of Orthogonal matter is spotted and an expedition to investigate is planned. And so it starts, while when it ends things will be quite different from before.
Quantum mechanics, antimatter and new biology; lots of diagrams, some good interpersonal conflict and a great ending again, though this time a bit less emotional than in The Clockwork Rocket. As much of the fun of the novel consists in following the investigations of the characters about the nature of their universe and of their species, I will just conclude with this quote that perfectly summarizes both the philosophy of the series and why sf is still the most interesting genre of today:
"Onesto said, “Imagine the time, a dozen generations from now, when wave mechanics powers every machine and everyone takes it for granted. Do you really want them thinking that it fell from the sky, fully formed, when the truth is that they owe their good fortune to the most powerful engine of change in history: people arguing about science.”
Overall The Eternal Flame is another outstanding novel from the author and a top 10 of mine for 2012!
October 27, 2012
3 Stars
I loved Egan's Orthagonal book one, and was really looking forward to this release, but I was left very unsatisfied. For over half this book nothing really happens other than one major "kidnapping" and page after page of analysis and discussion on the physics behind the Luxagens...diagrams and quizzes included. I love hard science fiction, and I loved the way that Egan interwove it with the action in the first book. But, in the Eternal Flame, there is no action other than you turning the page for far too long for me to give this novel high marks.
"Whatever the fundamental constituents of a rock or a flower were, they either possessed the light-making property or they didn’t; it wasn’t something that could come and go. A few lines of mathematics proved that “source strength” was conserved, as surely as energy itself. So matter had to be made of something that possessed source strength, or no flower could glow, no fuel could burn. The trouble was, anything with source strength should give off some light, visible or invisible, all the time; only absolute stillness—or the equally unlikely contrivance of a pure high-frequency oscillation—could keep it from radiating. But a substance that emitted light could not be left unchanged by the process: the energy of the light had to be balanced by the creation of energy of the opposite kind. A flower could use its newfound energy to make food, but what was a rock to do? With a sprinkling of liberator a rock went up in flames, but why should it need that push? Why hadn’t every lode of sunstone simply blown itself apart, eons ago?"
Egan is a very original and gifted hard science fiction author that I really enjoy. I wanted to love this book but could not get into it as there was nothing to get into for far too long...
I loved Egan's Orthagonal book one, and was really looking forward to this release, but I was left very unsatisfied. For over half this book nothing really happens other than one major "kidnapping" and page after page of analysis and discussion on the physics behind the Luxagens...diagrams and quizzes included. I love hard science fiction, and I loved the way that Egan interwove it with the action in the first book. But, in the Eternal Flame, there is no action other than you turning the page for far too long for me to give this novel high marks.
"Whatever the fundamental constituents of a rock or a flower were, they either possessed the light-making property or they didn’t; it wasn’t something that could come and go. A few lines of mathematics proved that “source strength” was conserved, as surely as energy itself. So matter had to be made of something that possessed source strength, or no flower could glow, no fuel could burn. The trouble was, anything with source strength should give off some light, visible or invisible, all the time; only absolute stillness—or the equally unlikely contrivance of a pure high-frequency oscillation—could keep it from radiating. But a substance that emitted light could not be left unchanged by the process: the energy of the light had to be balanced by the creation of energy of the opposite kind. A flower could use its newfound energy to make food, but what was a rock to do? With a sprinkling of liberator a rock went up in flames, but why should it need that push? Why hadn’t every lode of sunstone simply blown itself apart, eons ago?"
Egan is a very original and gifted hard science fiction author that I really enjoy. I wanted to love this book but could not get into it as there was nothing to get into for far too long...
November 10, 2012
This book is a marvel of a meticulously detailed exploration of the implications of a universe based on a different physics to ours. Egan has clearly thought through his plot with great care as his protagonists unpick the underlying structure of their reality. The physics unfolds as all is revealed - but too neatly, too patly - it feels as though the story is merely a vehicle for the science.
The numerous physics discussions complete with graphs is rather daunting and I confess that I did not even consider investing a week in fully understanding it all. To quote forum-speak: TLDR. (too long, didn't read.)
The biology also is revealed smoothly and with minimal hitches, but here I felt more engaged as the reproductive imperatives and their emotional consequences were explored. However , I must comment that the alien creatures felt a little too....human...in their thought patterns, too easily identified with.
In summary, a brave venture, well researched and well presented. But not five stars.
The numerous physics discussions complete with graphs is rather daunting and I confess that I did not even consider investing a week in fully understanding it all. To quote forum-speak: TLDR. (too long, didn't read.)
The biology also is revealed smoothly and with minimal hitches, but here I felt more engaged as the reproductive imperatives and their emotional consequences were explored. However , I must comment that the alien creatures felt a little too....human...in their thought patterns, too easily identified with.
In summary, a brave venture, well researched and well presented. But not five stars.
September 10, 2012
Even if The Orthogonal Universe remains one of the most fascinating SF creations, The Eternal Flame is not the formidable book that The Clockwork Rocket was, because of the absence of a character like Yalda and the herculean effort that the reader must make in order to relate to extraterrestrials on a ship in a strange space in a completely different universe.
January 19, 2015
Didn't finish book 2.
I didn't love book 1, and I bought this one on a whim before hopping on a plane. I just can't get into it.
Physics in this world are different. Varying speeds of light, orthogonal matter, time travel. We follow this universe's Newtons, Keplers and Maxwells experiment and build the rules of physics for this new world. Throw into it a lot of consternation about a different way to breed, and our intrepid scientists are also working on how to make this biological process work better in the spaceship hurtling through the cosmos.
The problem with this book is that the process of science is boring. The characters are more or less interchangeable and if they are "developing", they don't do it in the first half of the book. I took to skipping 5-page chunks at a time where our heroic scientists determine what's going on, complete with graphs and math.
The different kind of biology stuff is *slightly* more interesting in this book thanks to an emotionless, action-free and undramatic kidnapping. But here, too, we agonize over nervous systems and capturing test subjects.
The end result is a book that is almost tautological. It's a sci fi book in which the characters try to determine what the science is, rather than do something interesting with it. I tried really hard to think of a way to give this more stars, and perhaps this book is very interesting to some people, who would look at this universe's physics as a puzzle to be solved. But that's not me, and thus this book ends up my least favorite of Egan's.
I didn't love book 1, and I bought this one on a whim before hopping on a plane. I just can't get into it.
Physics in this world are different. Varying speeds of light, orthogonal matter, time travel. We follow this universe's Newtons, Keplers and Maxwells experiment and build the rules of physics for this new world. Throw into it a lot of consternation about a different way to breed, and our intrepid scientists are also working on how to make this biological process work better in the spaceship hurtling through the cosmos.
The problem with this book is that the process of science is boring. The characters are more or less interchangeable and if they are "developing", they don't do it in the first half of the book. I took to skipping 5-page chunks at a time where our heroic scientists determine what's going on, complete with graphs and math.
The different kind of biology stuff is *slightly* more interesting in this book thanks to an emotionless, action-free and undramatic kidnapping. But here, too, we agonize over nervous systems and capturing test subjects.
The end result is a book that is almost tautological. It's a sci fi book in which the characters try to determine what the science is, rather than do something interesting with it. I tried really hard to think of a way to give this more stars, and perhaps this book is very interesting to some people, who would look at this universe's physics as a puzzle to be solved. But that's not me, and thus this book ends up my least favorite of Egan's.
July 11, 2013
The following will include spoilers for The Clockwork Rocket.
A universe where parts of the spectrum of light travel at different speeds. A race where mothers cannot exist. Vector diagrams. They’re overused, but I’ll use them anyway: Egan is nothing if not ambitious and audacious.
A warning: the same issues that pertained to Clockwork crop up here. It is most definitely not a book that will work for everyone. You have to fall within a fairly specific range of readers: either someone who really enjoys thinking about physics and won’t be weirded out by the bizarre physics Egan is working through here; OR someone who is willing to skim over the vector diagrams and other physics-lecture bits, and just enjoy the story. Personally, I’m the latter. And the only reason I was willing and able to push through the physics was because I trust Egan to give me a really worthwhile story between, or around, it. I kind of imagined that I was listening to a really, really interesting person who occasionally meandered into talking about stuff I didn’t get, but was bound to get back to the good stuff eventually. And I was right.
The point of the Orthogonal series is to explore two central ideas: how the universe might be different if the speed of light isn’t constant; and how society might be different if mothers didn’t exist – or rather, they cease to exist at the point of childbirth. The story revolves around these two issues, and does so in occasionally remarkable ways. The physics aspect is very much an intellectual exercise; if there is commentary on modern science, aside from the obvious bureaucracy-getting-in-the-way, I missed it through not understanding enough of it. The biological/social aspect, though, includes a huge amount of commentary on modern Western gender relations, and it’s confronting, frightening, and sometimes scathing. I loved it.
Clockwork ended with a crew aboard the Peerless – a mountain launched into space – setting out with the objective of experimenting and thus hoping to find a solution to the probable destruction of their home world by an oncoming storm of meteors. This is only possible because of the different way light and time work in their universe; by moving away and then retuning home, much more time will have passed for them than on the planet. Because of the discoveries and attitudes, I’ve seen this book described as mirroring the Newtonian/seventeenth century European scientific revolution, which I think makes some sense but I wouldn’t push it too far. Along with the very pressing problem of saving the world, the crew carry in their bodies another issue – an issue that was only just being recognised as an issue: the fact that a mother’s flesh splits into her (usually four) children at ‘birth’. Mixing up the historical periods, this might be seen as somewhat comparable to the long period between Mary Wollstonecraft (late eighteenth century) and the suffrage movement of the early twentieth century (…. would that make Yalda both Ada Lovelace and Millicent Fawcett?? I am loving this idea, daft as it is). Women are starting to think that there might be alternatives to simply living with their co and eventually becoming their children.*
To continue this intriguing historical comparison, Eternal Flame is scientifically moving into an Einstein/Hubble frame of thinking, and socially (I can’t believe the gall of this sentence) into the second-wave feminism of the 1970s (I wish there was an author in the story that I could tag as Joanna Russ, but there’s not). In physics, in particular, there are astounding discoveries being made about the properties of light and heat which are beginning to have profound ramifications for how they think about solving their problem (problems actually, since they also left their planet with no way of getting back with the solution…). Socially, the crew has pretty much always accepted women as being just as worthy in science and other jobs as their male counterparts – not least because many of the crew, especially in the sciences, were women. However, biology is still an issue. The original women used a drug, holin, in order to delay the onset of fission (birth). By this stage – three generations later – still use holin but are also basically starving themselves, for two reasons: both to delay birth, and in the hope that their fission will result in two, rather than four, children. Because the Peerless has experienced a population explosion, and they cannot support every pair becoming five. So (to get back to my comparison), the right of a woman to decide when to have children is one of the big issues – as it was with the introduction of the pill and the controversy over abortion (which I know is still ongoing).**
There are three narrative strands going on here, which frequently intersect but deal with different issues for the ship. I assume they’re meant to be of equal importance, but I’ll be honest and say the one that dealt the most with pretty full-on physics definitely took a bit of a backseat for me, even though I could see how vital it was to the story’s point. Carlo is investigating biology and fertility; both the fact that animals appear to exchange information somehow via infrared… something… and the fact that some animals seem to have adapted to biparous fission very easily. Tamara is an astronomer who observes a massive object outside in the void, and develops an audacious plan to use it somehow. Carla, a physicist, is investigating the properties of light and energy and challenging a lot of preconceived notions in the process.
The novel as a whole does involve a lot of physics-lecture stuff. There really are a lot of vector diagrams, and graphs demonstrating energy levels, and… other things. The biology doesn’t get quite the same treatment, perhaps because it’s not quite so radically different from our world. However, the science is not the be-all of the novel – if it had been I probably wouldn’t have persevered. There’s a bit of action, with an excursion out to the Object Tamara observed and some other dangerous moments for characters I had grown fond of. There’s some great character development, in particular as different people consider the biology issues for themselves and reflect on what it means for them individually and as a society; a few make very surprising decisions that are nonetheless entirely consistent. Being set on a spaceship, large as it is, means that the story is necessarily constrained; keeping the focus on three main protagonists helps with it not feeling claustrophobic but rather focussed, which is also aided by making them active in such different spheres. The physics and biology dominate, as discussed; there are also undercurrents of the frustrations of bureaucracy and the impact of history – after all, this is a generation of people working towards solving a problem for a world they have never known.
If you want to be read a science fiction series that will really challenge you scientifically while also (largely) being very readable, coming complete with a compelling storyline, this is it.
*I’m well aware that this is grossly unfair and generalising to the women before Wollstonecraft, and in fact Egan does not make it nearly so clear-cut; as with real European history, there have always been women who bucked the trend in this world, too.
**I have no idea where Egan could go with this historical comparison for the next book. Still, it was fun while it lasted.***
***I’m not suggesting Egan did this deliberately. I’m quite sure he didn’t.
A universe where parts of the spectrum of light travel at different speeds. A race where mothers cannot exist. Vector diagrams. They’re overused, but I’ll use them anyway: Egan is nothing if not ambitious and audacious.
A warning: the same issues that pertained to Clockwork crop up here. It is most definitely not a book that will work for everyone. You have to fall within a fairly specific range of readers: either someone who really enjoys thinking about physics and won’t be weirded out by the bizarre physics Egan is working through here; OR someone who is willing to skim over the vector diagrams and other physics-lecture bits, and just enjoy the story. Personally, I’m the latter. And the only reason I was willing and able to push through the physics was because I trust Egan to give me a really worthwhile story between, or around, it. I kind of imagined that I was listening to a really, really interesting person who occasionally meandered into talking about stuff I didn’t get, but was bound to get back to the good stuff eventually. And I was right.
The point of the Orthogonal series is to explore two central ideas: how the universe might be different if the speed of light isn’t constant; and how society might be different if mothers didn’t exist – or rather, they cease to exist at the point of childbirth. The story revolves around these two issues, and does so in occasionally remarkable ways. The physics aspect is very much an intellectual exercise; if there is commentary on modern science, aside from the obvious bureaucracy-getting-in-the-way, I missed it through not understanding enough of it. The biological/social aspect, though, includes a huge amount of commentary on modern Western gender relations, and it’s confronting, frightening, and sometimes scathing. I loved it.
Clockwork ended with a crew aboard the Peerless – a mountain launched into space – setting out with the objective of experimenting and thus hoping to find a solution to the probable destruction of their home world by an oncoming storm of meteors. This is only possible because of the different way light and time work in their universe; by moving away and then retuning home, much more time will have passed for them than on the planet. Because of the discoveries and attitudes, I’ve seen this book described as mirroring the Newtonian/seventeenth century European scientific revolution, which I think makes some sense but I wouldn’t push it too far. Along with the very pressing problem of saving the world, the crew carry in their bodies another issue – an issue that was only just being recognised as an issue: the fact that a mother’s flesh splits into her (usually four) children at ‘birth’. Mixing up the historical periods, this might be seen as somewhat comparable to the long period between Mary Wollstonecraft (late eighteenth century) and the suffrage movement of the early twentieth century (…. would that make Yalda both Ada Lovelace and Millicent Fawcett?? I am loving this idea, daft as it is). Women are starting to think that there might be alternatives to simply living with their co and eventually becoming their children.*
To continue this intriguing historical comparison, Eternal Flame is scientifically moving into an Einstein/Hubble frame of thinking, and socially (I can’t believe the gall of this sentence) into the second-wave feminism of the 1970s (I wish there was an author in the story that I could tag as Joanna Russ, but there’s not). In physics, in particular, there are astounding discoveries being made about the properties of light and heat which are beginning to have profound ramifications for how they think about solving their problem (problems actually, since they also left their planet with no way of getting back with the solution…). Socially, the crew has pretty much always accepted women as being just as worthy in science and other jobs as their male counterparts – not least because many of the crew, especially in the sciences, were women. However, biology is still an issue. The original women used a drug, holin, in order to delay the onset of fission (birth). By this stage – three generations later – still use holin but are also basically starving themselves, for two reasons: both to delay birth, and in the hope that their fission will result in two, rather than four, children. Because the Peerless has experienced a population explosion, and they cannot support every pair becoming five. So (to get back to my comparison), the right of a woman to decide when to have children is one of the big issues – as it was with the introduction of the pill and the controversy over abortion (which I know is still ongoing).**
There are three narrative strands going on here, which frequently intersect but deal with different issues for the ship. I assume they’re meant to be of equal importance, but I’ll be honest and say the one that dealt the most with pretty full-on physics definitely took a bit of a backseat for me, even though I could see how vital it was to the story’s point. Carlo is investigating biology and fertility; both the fact that animals appear to exchange information somehow via infrared… something… and the fact that some animals seem to have adapted to biparous fission very easily. Tamara is an astronomer who observes a massive object outside in the void, and develops an audacious plan to use it somehow. Carla, a physicist, is investigating the properties of light and energy and challenging a lot of preconceived notions in the process.
The novel as a whole does involve a lot of physics-lecture stuff. There really are a lot of vector diagrams, and graphs demonstrating energy levels, and… other things. The biology doesn’t get quite the same treatment, perhaps because it’s not quite so radically different from our world. However, the science is not the be-all of the novel – if it had been I probably wouldn’t have persevered. There’s a bit of action, with an excursion out to the Object Tamara observed and some other dangerous moments for characters I had grown fond of. There’s some great character development, in particular as different people consider the biology issues for themselves and reflect on what it means for them individually and as a society; a few make very surprising decisions that are nonetheless entirely consistent. Being set on a spaceship, large as it is, means that the story is necessarily constrained; keeping the focus on three main protagonists helps with it not feeling claustrophobic but rather focussed, which is also aided by making them active in such different spheres. The physics and biology dominate, as discussed; there are also undercurrents of the frustrations of bureaucracy and the impact of history – after all, this is a generation of people working towards solving a problem for a world they have never known.
If you want to be read a science fiction series that will really challenge you scientifically while also (largely) being very readable, coming complete with a compelling storyline, this is it.
*I’m well aware that this is grossly unfair and generalising to the women before Wollstonecraft, and in fact Egan does not make it nearly so clear-cut; as with real European history, there have always been women who bucked the trend in this world, too.
**I have no idea where Egan could go with this historical comparison for the next book. Still, it was fun while it lasted.***
***I’m not suggesting Egan did this deliberately. I’m quite sure he didn’t.
July 12, 2017
Must read for everyone related to academia or remotely interested in sci-fi.
Contrary to other reviews, school-level understanding of physics, math and evolution should be enough for you to enjoy it.
Contrary to other reviews, school-level understanding of physics, math and evolution should be enough for you to enjoy it.
January 25, 2013
A great follow-up to "The Clockwork Rocket". While that book covers the 'Newton' era of discovery (basic laws of energy, light and motion) for the universe created by Egan, this one throws in the equivalent of Einstein and Mendel over the discovery of their version of quantum theory and of reproduction.
In this book, the descendants of the people who launched The Peerless on a voyage of discovery to save their world are facing social and physical problems. Their procreation process involves the female splitting in four or two new bodies; a process that can only be delayed by being in a near-starvation state after the drug used to halt the process gives out. They are also no nearer to solving the problem of what the hurtlers that would destroy their world are made of or how to get enough fuel to turn The Peerless and journey back to their world.
Then, a piece of a hurtler turns up near them. The journey to investigate that piece would turn out to involve dangers never encountered by them (although the observant reader will probably know just what they are getting themselves into) and reveal a possible solution to their fuel problem.
Meanwhile, investigations into how the internal body signals may cause the body to initiate the procreation process takes a surprising turn as an alternative procreation process is revealed. But this process may end up tearing the fragile society of The Peerless apart as some segments of the society believe it is 'tampering with a natural process' (sounds familiar)?
While set in a completely different universe, the characters Egan creates in this book have human-like emotions and conflicts. The resolutions to the problems introduced feel a bit rushed at the end of the book. Still, the journey made is a fascinating one.
As usual, some parts of the book involve mathematics and diagrams, so it may be better to take the word of the characters discussing the maths in the story and move on so as not to get bogged down. The section on Quaternions is especially mind-twisting but probably familiar to those who manipulate numbers in more than three dimensions.
Now eagerly awaiting the closure to the series ("The Arrows of Time") to see what new wonders Egan will introduce.
In this book, the descendants of the people who launched The Peerless on a voyage of discovery to save their world are facing social and physical problems. Their procreation process involves the female splitting in four or two new bodies; a process that can only be delayed by being in a near-starvation state after the drug used to halt the process gives out. They are also no nearer to solving the problem of what the hurtlers that would destroy their world are made of or how to get enough fuel to turn The Peerless and journey back to their world.
Then, a piece of a hurtler turns up near them. The journey to investigate that piece would turn out to involve dangers never encountered by them (although the observant reader will probably know just what they are getting themselves into) and reveal a possible solution to their fuel problem.
Meanwhile, investigations into how the internal body signals may cause the body to initiate the procreation process takes a surprising turn as an alternative procreation process is revealed. But this process may end up tearing the fragile society of The Peerless apart as some segments of the society believe it is 'tampering with a natural process' (sounds familiar)?
While set in a completely different universe, the characters Egan creates in this book have human-like emotions and conflicts. The resolutions to the problems introduced feel a bit rushed at the end of the book. Still, the journey made is a fascinating one.
As usual, some parts of the book involve mathematics and diagrams, so it may be better to take the word of the characters discussing the maths in the story and move on so as not to get bogged down. The section on Quaternions is especially mind-twisting but probably familiar to those who manipulate numbers in more than three dimensions.
Now eagerly awaiting the closure to the series ("The Arrows of Time") to see what new wonders Egan will introduce.
January 14, 2015
Pleasantly surprising. I found this in the bargain bin of a used book store and since I have enjoyed some of Egan's short stories, I bought it. However, when I started reading it, I realized it was the second of a trilogy. Also, some of the reviews were less than enthusiastic about the physics (including diagrams) that were part of the storyline. Anyway, the book pretty much hooked me right at the beginning with a very intense scene. As I read, it became apparent these were far from human. For instance, they can retract or grow arms at will. I still am not sure what the characters really look like. I intend to find a copy of the first book soon. Anyway, as bizarre as the characters and the universe is, I found the story appealing and the characters captivating. The story takes place on a spaceship (actually a mountain) which has two main problems: famine and fuel. These are life and death issues which the main characters tackle head on. I won't describe all of the great ideas that Egan brings out in this book, but it was one of the better "ideas driven" books I have read in a while. It's a very unique universe that these creatures inhabit. What I really enjoyed though were the characters. They are very alien but have quite a few endearing human qualities. They display all the basic human emotions and actually chirp or buzz sometimes like we would laugh, etc. Also, the actions of a couple of the main characters are truly heroic. Also like humanity, there is an "anti science" faction that has to be overcome. This may be Egan's main point, To quote the book, "they owe their good fortune to the most powerful engine of change in history: people arguing about science." Now I have to admit that I skimmed over most of the physics "classes." As long as you know the basic idea Egan is trying to convey, skimming over these parts doesn't detract at all.
March 28, 2013
I had high expectations for this book, and it totally lived up to them! The characters are all new, the problems facing them are interesting, and the science - oh god - the science is so hard, and so AWESOME! Not to spoil too much, but the inhabitants of the Peerless make great breakthroughs in both physics and biology. There is some political and social strife, sexism, etc., but it doesn't spoil this fun read. After all, big scientific progress often provokes social resistance. Some of the action is really awesome, like the voyage to the orthogonal space object, and there's even a scene where someone is rescued from being lost, floating in space! I can't wait to read the third book...
October 21, 2022
This second book was like the first, only more so. I didn't think it was possible this one could be even more about scientific theories and experiments, primarily physics and physiology, but it was. Even though this took place almost exclusively within a generation ship, it may as well have been a university. The book covers most aspects of the scientific process, including begging for grants. There were competing theories that ended up as they started, or they merged, or an outsider developed them in a radically different way, or it was a blind alley. Sometimes the greatest advances in knowledge came from mistakes, accidents, and what initially seemed to be failure. Those weren't the only setbacks though, as political and sociocultural forces also stymied research goals. Violence was even a possibility for those who feel that science has gone too far. The book opened with a horrific act due to famine and general scarcity. Considering what a closed system it was, sacrifices had to be continually made to survive, which also impeded scientific progress.
More details were revealed about the species the characters were and how their society came to be. I'm somewhat confident that they were vaguely human but with many functional differences due to how physics function in their universe and how that affected evolution of all organic life. I had thought that they used duodecimal system because it's said to be a better system, but no, it's revealed that they had six fingers on each hand. They experiment on voles, but move on to arborines which were said to be closer to them. The visual image that came to mind for arborines were the bullymongs from the videogame, Borderlands 2. I think abrborines were roughly some sort of primate. Their technology was so uneven because electronics weren't possible in this universe due to how their physics affected electrostatic force.
Female self-determination was even more important for the narrative this time. Its societal repercussions were as intense as they were expected. This was mostly near the end of the book, the last 13% or so, which had more focus on the physiological experiments that were easier for me to follow. This part was enjoyable and emotionally moving enough that I decided to round this up to 4 stars. Before that point I surely would've rounded it down to 3 stars. I'm conflicted about the ending and I thought it was well done. The conclusion stated that if the reader accepts the premise, then to remain consistent the reader must also accept this. It was a situation that the character involved was dismayed and reluctant about. Maybe Planck's Principle would alleviate these ethical quandaries, which states: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Rating: 3.5/5
More details were revealed about the species the characters were and how their society came to be. I'm somewhat confident that they were vaguely human but with many functional differences due to how physics function in their universe and how that affected evolution of all organic life. I had thought that they used duodecimal system because it's said to be a better system, but no, it's revealed that they had six fingers on each hand. They experiment on voles, but move on to arborines which were said to be closer to them. The visual image that came to mind for arborines were the bullymongs from the videogame, Borderlands 2. I think abrborines were roughly some sort of primate. Their technology was so uneven because electronics weren't possible in this universe due to how their physics affected electrostatic force.
Female self-determination was even more important for the narrative this time. Its societal repercussions were as intense as they were expected. This was mostly near the end of the book, the last 13% or so, which had more focus on the physiological experiments that were easier for me to follow. This part was enjoyable and emotionally moving enough that I decided to round this up to 4 stars. Before that point I surely would've rounded it down to 3 stars. I'm conflicted about the ending and I thought it was well done. The conclusion stated that if the reader accepts the premise, then to remain consistent the reader must also accept this. It was a situation that the character involved was dismayed and reluctant about. Maybe Planck's Principle would alleviate these ethical quandaries, which states: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Rating: 3.5/5
September 28, 2019
This one follows very well on the first book. It picks up three generations in the future of the generation ship, and starts to deal with the problems of limited supply vs. population stability. The gender politics get ramped up, and because biology is a bigger factor in this book, I was able to follow the scientific discussions better.
Again, I really applaud Egan's concepts for aliens. This species' (and all the species on their planet, naturally) relationship to light was presented in the first book, but here it's really explored in detail. Also, the biology turns political very well. Since the women are forced to live off a starvation diet to prevent fission into four children (which would break the population curve) but the men get to eat normally because they're "just" the post-fission caregivers, there's an undercurrent of misery throughout the book and also a huge motivating factor to the biologist POV character.
Some spoiler quotes:
Amazing to see a second volume of a trilogy actually sustain the story and provide new momentum.
Again, I really applaud Egan's concepts for aliens. This species' (and all the species on their planet, naturally) relationship to light was presented in the first book, but here it's really explored in detail. Also, the biology turns political very well. Since the women are forced to live off a starvation diet to prevent fission into four children (which would break the population curve) but the men get to eat normally because they're "just" the post-fission caregivers, there's an undercurrent of misery throughout the book and also a huge motivating factor to the biologist POV character.
Some spoiler quotes:
Amazing to see a second volume of a trilogy actually sustain the story and provide new momentum.
April 2, 2024
Oh this was so good. We follow three characters this time, only one of whom is a physicist (or, in the language of their world, studies optics), and so we get to see other aspects of worldbuilding: the ideas on reproductive rights which were a significant theme in the first book are now front and centre, and we get some very interesting insights into the biology of our characters and their world. These two interrelated themes end up becoming very important to the plot, and with the way it's been resolved, I'm wondering how this would affect events in the next book:
But also, the physics. Despite the slightly smaller focus on it, we still get to see a great deal of ideas: a major plotline is the resolution of (the rotational version of) the photoelectric effect, which very much like in our world, motivates the formulation of quantum physics. In some ways, knowing real-life physics provides some sort of spoiler to where things might go - when people argue about wave-particle duality, for instance, you have a feeling about who's in the right. There's a bunch more interesting stuff: antimatter, some version of mass-energy equivalence(?), the invention of the laser (which I thought was very cool). The chapter on quaternions was very cool (and probably would be completely incomprehensible in an audiobook version). We've approached the limit of my physics knowledge (the highest level physics course I've done was an introductory one in quantum mechanics, which largely involved solving the Schrödinger equation for different potentials), so I'm actually not sure what to expect in the next book. I am excited, nonetheless.
But also, the physics. Despite the slightly smaller focus on it, we still get to see a great deal of ideas: a major plotline is the resolution of (the rotational version of) the photoelectric effect, which very much like in our world, motivates the formulation of quantum physics. In some ways, knowing real-life physics provides some sort of spoiler to where things might go - when people argue about wave-particle duality, for instance, you have a feeling about who's in the right. There's a bunch more interesting stuff: antimatter, some version of mass-energy equivalence(?), the invention of the laser (which I thought was very cool). The chapter on quaternions was very cool (and probably would be completely incomprehensible in an audiobook version). We've approached the limit of my physics knowledge (the highest level physics course I've done was an introductory one in quantum mechanics, which largely involved solving the Schrödinger equation for different potentials), so I'm actually not sure what to expect in the next book. I am excited, nonetheless.
May 16, 2017
I gave the first book four stars, and I really wanted to like this one more.
Instead, what the Orthogonal Trilogy makes me understand, and this understanding goes stronger from book to book, is that real good hard core science fiction is not only about inventing a universe and exploring the implications of what you invented. It is actually also about hiding the seems and making you forget that there is a strange universe behind it at all. In the Orthogonal Trilogy instead of the fabric, we get the seems.
The first book didn't have a whole lot of plot, and I was not expecting too much from the second. Sadly, it had even less plot - nothing happens and then the book is over. The science is not the background for the story because there is no story. The science is the story.
The first book had adequate characters but nothing more. This one has even less developed characters, with either very little motivation for what they are doing or a one-track stereotypical mind
Even the physics, the real star of the book, are much less interesting. While the first book was ground-breaking in setting up the physics and how it is discovered, this one failed to grab my interest. The main mathematical tool is not explained well enough for someone not already familiar with it, and much of it sounds like hocus pocus.
The biology/sociology part was a bit stronger, explores the full implications of what the biology of the Orthogonal people will mean to a society closed in a generation spaceship. It wasn't brilliant, but it help keep my attention and felt slightly more justified.
So reading what I wrote, and seeing how I scored the book three stars, I feel like I need to justify why I didn't score it lower. I guess the bottom line is still that Egan's imagination, first in inventing this universe, and then in developing the implications further and further, is something I can't ignore. And while I would have preferred a story like the work of one of the old masters (Niven, Asimov etc.) I would settle for the intellectual challenge of trying to understand Egan's physics. Maybe I don't feel it is good science fiction or good literature, but it's worth my time.
Instead, what the Orthogonal Trilogy makes me understand, and this understanding goes stronger from book to book, is that real good hard core science fiction is not only about inventing a universe and exploring the implications of what you invented. It is actually also about hiding the seems and making you forget that there is a strange universe behind it at all. In the Orthogonal Trilogy instead of the fabric, we get the seems.
The first book didn't have a whole lot of plot, and I was not expecting too much from the second. Sadly, it had even less plot - nothing happens and then the book is over. The science is not the background for the story because there is no story. The science is the story.
The first book had adequate characters but nothing more. This one has even less developed characters, with either very little motivation for what they are doing or a one-track stereotypical mind
Even the physics, the real star of the book, are much less interesting. While the first book was ground-breaking in setting up the physics and how it is discovered, this one failed to grab my interest. The main mathematical tool is not explained well enough for someone not already familiar with it, and much of it sounds like hocus pocus.
The biology/sociology part was a bit stronger, explores the full implications of what the biology of the Orthogonal people will mean to a society closed in a generation spaceship. It wasn't brilliant, but it help keep my attention and felt slightly more justified.
So reading what I wrote, and seeing how I scored the book three stars, I feel like I need to justify why I didn't score it lower. I guess the bottom line is still that Egan's imagination, first in inventing this universe, and then in developing the implications further and further, is something I can't ignore. And while I would have preferred a story like the work of one of the old masters (Niven, Asimov etc.) I would settle for the intellectual challenge of trying to understand Egan's physics. Maybe I don't feel it is good science fiction or good literature, but it's worth my time.
June 5, 2022
Most science fiction would be more aptly named “technology fiction” in my view, where the gee-whiz aspects of futurism’s magical wonders take center stage. This isn’t meant as derision but as contrast to Greg Egan’s “Orthogonal” series where the scientific method itself becomes a dominant theme. The mission of the alien scientists aboard the spaceship Peerless, launched in book one, is to find a solution to their homeworld’s impending destruction by meteor bombardment. The alternate physics of their universe reverses the twin paradox of our universe so that several generations will be born and die on the Peerless while only a few years will have passed back on the homeworld upon its eventual return.
Given this fortuitous setup of reverse time dilation, the Peerless scientists have the luxury of years, generations in fact, to apply their skills at unraveling many of the universe’s mysteries, not merely how to avoid their homeworld’s annihilation. Of these, a solution to their unique population control conundrum is most interesting. Females of the species give birth through a process similar to cell mitosis—they procreate by literally splitting in two. If the mother is healthy and well-fed the two offspring will themselves immediately divide, resulting in four offspring for each couple. While the mandatory death of the mother during childbirth is accepted as normal, the doubling of the population with each generation cannot be sustained aboard a space vessel with limited resources. Women are pressured to dramatically limit their food intake in an effort to limit the number of their offspring at two, but a life of starvation followed by certain death upon giving birth is a sad existence.
When a brilliantly-conceived alternative is offered to the citizenry, many men object violently, fearing that their wives will choose the new procedure. Without the need for men to fulfill the traditional role of child rearing, this new procedure leaves many men feeling redundant. The notion of independent women raising a family without the need to have a man around leaves many men feeling threatened, with parallels to our own society, both obvious and subtle.
The science is always primary, and the alternate universe Egan has created maintains consistency throughout, with his trademark diagrams illustrating relevant principles as the Peerless' scientists develop their versions of quantum mechanics and particle physics. The characterizations don’t suffer terribly but I honestly had a bit of difficulty keeping them all straight in my mind. The joy of watching these characters discover their own versions of quantum mechanics, lasers and genetics (an Egan masterpiece of supposition) easily surpasses any shortcomings of my own ability to keep it all sorted. Looking forward to book three.
Given this fortuitous setup of reverse time dilation, the Peerless scientists have the luxury of years, generations in fact, to apply their skills at unraveling many of the universe’s mysteries, not merely how to avoid their homeworld’s annihilation. Of these, a solution to their unique population control conundrum is most interesting. Females of the species give birth through a process similar to cell mitosis—they procreate by literally splitting in two. If the mother is healthy and well-fed the two offspring will themselves immediately divide, resulting in four offspring for each couple. While the mandatory death of the mother during childbirth is accepted as normal, the doubling of the population with each generation cannot be sustained aboard a space vessel with limited resources. Women are pressured to dramatically limit their food intake in an effort to limit the number of their offspring at two, but a life of starvation followed by certain death upon giving birth is a sad existence.
When a brilliantly-conceived alternative is offered to the citizenry, many men object violently, fearing that their wives will choose the new procedure. Without the need for men to fulfill the traditional role of child rearing, this new procedure leaves many men feeling redundant. The notion of independent women raising a family without the need to have a man around leaves many men feeling threatened, with parallels to our own society, both obvious and subtle.
The science is always primary, and the alternate universe Egan has created maintains consistency throughout, with his trademark diagrams illustrating relevant principles as the Peerless' scientists develop their versions of quantum mechanics and particle physics. The characterizations don’t suffer terribly but I honestly had a bit of difficulty keeping them all straight in my mind. The joy of watching these characters discover their own versions of quantum mechanics, lasers and genetics (an Egan masterpiece of supposition) easily surpasses any shortcomings of my own ability to keep it all sorted. Looking forward to book three.
September 18, 2021
Where do you go from a book as perfect as The Clockwork Rocket? Why, to infinity, and beyond! I have a soft spot for generation ship stories, and this is right up there on par with Aurora. Explore hostile alien planets! Deal with catastrophic life support failures! Cannibalise and remodel your ship over decades! But wait, there's more! Simultaneously explore the species' biology and progress a kick-ass feminist evolutionary revolution! Not enough words. This series is brilliant.
May 29, 2022
Totally amazing stuff from Greg Egan yet again. This one is not for the faint hearted, I certainly don’t have the brain power to quite follow the mathematical rules that underlie this rigorously imagined alternate universe but I suspect if you like a challenge and really love physics and math this book will be 6 stars. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get all the details though, the story is still comprehensible and is inspiring, dealing with the discovery of things via scientific method and all through the viewpoint of aliens beings struggling to survive with limited resources in a generational spaceship. It touches on biology and sociology and politics too due to the development of the next generations struggle to fulfil their ancestors expectations and resist their animal instincts without destroying their fragile society. Basically I couldn’t imagine not reading all his books. (The arrows of Time completes the trilogy.)
July 10, 2020
This series of books have been fascinating. The characters while being completely alien feel like real people with alien but relatable struggles. Seeing them fight for something humans do naturally reminds me of how we fight with biology for our benefit.
The mountain and what surrounds it is dreamlike, I can't get enough of the image of trails of colored light across space.
Everything is written with extreme attention to details and I especially love that the homeworld is essentially paralized in time for the entirety of the book.
This series deserves the attention of anyone who loves biology, physics and a book that doesn't look down on you.
The mountain and what surrounds it is dreamlike, I can't get enough of the image of trails of colored light across space.
Everything is written with extreme attention to details and I especially love that the homeworld is essentially paralized in time for the entirety of the book.
This series deserves the attention of anyone who loves biology, physics and a book that doesn't look down on you.
June 28, 2021
DNF almost a quarter into the book. Orthogonal #1, Clockwork Rocket was fresh and enjoyable with interesting world building and alien characters. Although there was also plenty of speculative science that at least was possible to skim or skip. Not so in #2 where every chapter so far is more or less a depiction of an experiment in alternate physics, astronomy, biology etc, with the characters conducting them rather anonymous and interchangeable and with no discernible plot. Unless you're an aficionado of alternate physics there's not much else here.
May 24, 2023
The starship Peerless continues its path through space, now a functional generation ship as this book relates the adventures of the descendants of the original cast, continuing the scientific research which they hope will one day save their home planet. I rated this series highly despite the negative aspects of it (mainly, the focus on scientific lectures which are incomprehensible to me), mainly because of the fascinating world Egan has created; unfortunately, the second volume of the series lacks the compelling characters of the first book.
June 12, 2018
Still one of the most innovative and deep-thinking sci-fi series ever. Not only does it tackle a different paradigm of quantum physics, it also asks really hard questions about biology. The correlation to the Millikan experiment (and others) just thrilled me. Even if you don't work through all the vector math yourself (and I didn't), the explanations are enough to get you through the important plot points. Can't wait to read the third!
March 31, 2019
I want to love these books but they can be hard to read - the very detailed exploration of a universe with different physics can be a slog (I do have a degree in maths, but this is entirely too much hard work for bed-time reading).
The biology is also interesting, but sometimes brutal.
I think I love the fact that these books exist, and that they are so alien is a triumph of imagination. I find it hard to recommend them though, very technical.
The biology is also interesting, but sometimes brutal.
I think I love the fact that these books exist, and that they are so alien is a triumph of imagination. I find it hard to recommend them though, very technical.
January 7, 2023
I'm a major hard sci fi reader, with a background in physics, and yet to me this book was impenetrable. Literally ever aspect of the "story" is alien--the physics, the language, the creatures themselves, the situation/plot (although I never encountered one). There was simply no entry point that hooked me, so I gave up.
August 24, 2024
Much better than the first book, I realized I could enjoy it more when I just let myself not understand some of the in universe physics. Without the pressure I put on myself, it was actually easier to notice similarities to our universe! The actual story and politics were much better than the first book as well
September 16, 2019
This is very "hard" Science Fiction. Rock hard! Not only is it long on science, but Egan has created his own cosmology, which is revealed in experiments and diagrams. No doubt some readers will find this delightful. They are smarter than me. I just found it exhausting.
January 18, 2021
As a novel it wasn’t great, but as an alternate history about the discovery of quantum mechanics, and scientific progress more generally, this was interesting, and building an alternative universe on different laws of physics is impressive nonetheless.
December 14, 2023
Too slow; too much tell-not-show; stakes high but too easygoing for the characters.
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