This one kinda came out of nowhere and hit me up the side of my head.
I mean, you'd have thought I would have known all about the grand classics and anThis one kinda came out of nowhere and hit me up the side of my head.
I mean, you'd have thought I would have known all about the grand classics and any book THIS good has GOT to have about a million readers, RIGHT? At least, this is the grand assumption we (and I mean, me, sadly,) tend to make.
And yet, I've BARELY heard of this book and there's no sign of it ever becoming an audiobook and aside from a few brave glowing reviews that compare it favorably to Dune and La Morte Darthur, my skepticism remained high... UNTIL I read it.
And now, even though I've read something like 2.5k SF novels, I have to come right out and say it: I'm putting this book in my top 20 novels of all time. I'm both squeeing and deeply, deeply impressed.
This is a good thousand years in our future and the galaxy is populated with post-humans who have changed themselves into creatures both alien and familiar and often very, very strange. We begin with Pilots, a version of King Arthur's knights only with high esoteric maths, the need for immense courage because, as it is written in stone, "Pilots Die", and a somewhat simple story of a young journeyman pilot who, showing great bravery, explores a machine intelligence spanning a moon -- and more.
This interesting quest only raises a ton of new questions, and while it seems pretty straightforward, it really isn't. This is a story of the meaning of life. The search for immortality. Of friendship, of love, of parentage, of memory, and of everything from the deepest parts of our past as humans (living as cave-men takes up a great deal of the tale) all the way to immensely futuristic worldbuilding that includes folding space, speeding cognition, vast artificial intelligence, seas of godlike aquatic creatures, nanotech worlds, and... immortality.)
It sticks a pin in everything, and the characters are truly wonderful. They are so damn human. Belligerent, idiotic, sometimes wise, violent, lovers of poetry, funny, and lustful. And let's not forget that they are mathematical geniuses, prone to rage, and they're extraordinary skaters. :)
The worldbuilding is all kinds of amazing and it not only holds together as well as Dune, it feels nearly as vast, as creative, and as interesting as Dune. That's not to say it actually FEELS like Dune except in the ways that certain vast build-ups coalesce, but the comparison is still quite good.
I'm all aglow. I'm probably going to re-read this again in a few years, but first I'm going to be flying into the next book. :) Soon.
To sum up: READ THIS BOOK. It needs to be known. It needs to be talked about among all the SF fandom. If you LIKE SF at all, this ought to be a must-read. It's all kinds of amazing....more
I think I came into this read with certain expectations. I've read five of his other novels and while many of them had serious moments, they were (on I think I came into this read with certain expectations. I've read five of his other novels and while many of them had serious moments, they were (on the whole) rather funny or even deeply amusing while also kicking major SF (or UF) butt.
This one, at least by the blurb, gave me a feeling like this would be a fast, furious, and funny romance with massive cyborg hardware wrapped in a romance.
What I found was a serious work met with quiet humor, an empathic romance born of anxiety, compassion, and shared threats.
How was it serious? It does wonders for the neurodiverse. Whether someone is anxious, depressed, or suffering from PTSD, I've rarely read a more comprehensive (and interesting) treatment. And it makes SENSE. Anyone that afraid of anything WOULD be a prime candidate for the full transhumanist package. And more, of course. Who needs a white matrix room when you can store all your guns IN your body. :)
Of course, I'm focusing on what makes this an excellent novel that will stay with me a while.
The other trappings are all kinds of awesome, too. It really IS a furious, high-octane shoot-em-up adventure, after all. And the romance is freaking sweet and hits all the right kinds of tones.
It's just not designed to be a laugh-a-minute tale. And I think it's BETTER for it. :)...more
For all you technogeeks out there interested in transhumanism, the world-as-story theory of everything human, or you SF lovers, there really isn't allFor all you technogeeks out there interested in transhumanism, the world-as-story theory of everything human, or you SF lovers, there really isn't all that much new inside this book. You're probably well versed in these ideas. Money, cultural realism, trust, and how we use technology or religion is al based on a fiction that we all accept. No problem.
When it comes to imagining what might come next, from singularities, man-machine hybrids, or the idea that AIs might consider us superfluous (an idea I am increasingly starting to agree with), there really isn't anything groundbreaking here.
So why do I give it a four rather than a three or lower?
It's entertaining, well-written, and while it doesn't scratch my itch to learn anything new, it is a fairly comprehensive backdrop of what might come next. Of course, we're dealing with future prediction here. Most of what we assume will never come about. :)
Oh, well! At least it's consensual food-for-thought. Zeitgeist stuff. Our current hopes and fears rather than reality. :)...more
I have a TON to say about Stephen Wolfram, but for the sake of reviewing, I'll highlight. :)
I'm a fanboy. I mean, back in the day when I first saw WolI have a TON to say about Stephen Wolfram, but for the sake of reviewing, I'll highlight. :)
I'm a fanboy. I mean, back in the day when I first saw Wolfram Alpha get released, I practically pooped myself. An all-round science tool that aimed to combine every known function in the world in one easy search bar that you can use real language with? I downloaded the hell out of it and squeed with joy that there were people like this in the world that would make things like this.
Everything that can be computed, in ONE PLACE. As much knowledge as possible, as broadly applicable as possible, available to everyone.
I mean, sure, it's bound to be buggy and a constant work in progress, but this is a pure repository of knowledge, man, and IT'S FREE. :) And it's not just about data, but about how to calculate reality. :) Yay!
Okay, peeps, I know this seems really geeky and all, and I agree. But Stephen Wolfram is a real-life hero. He's putting his prodigious mind into the problem of Everything. Language, Rosetta Stones for aliens, repositories of all knowledge, and working out the problems inherent in his Theory of Computational Equivalence and the Theory of Computational Irreducibility. (Put simply, nature does the same thing as well and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, writ large.)
It also means he's doing all the heavy lifting for an AI that will rule the physical world.
But fortunately, he's also been a real-life SF example of someone who has recorded and programmed, in the Wolfram programming language, every instant of his life, correspondence and thought process, including every keystroke he's ever made, every meeting he's ever been in, and he's now in a very unique position to be uploaded directly into the web, maintaining everything he is and every decision he's made, ready to combat said AI. :)
I joke, sure, but the reality of such a monumental undertaking is REAL. This book is an autobiography of sorts and he loves to share. I kinda wondered where he was going with a lot of it, but then I came up with my theory and so narrative consistency is resolved. :)
Fun fact! All those equations in the movie Arrival? Thank Stephen Wolfram's son. :) Both were consultants to make the math real. :) No BS. :) That's REAL STUFF, man! :)...more
No spoilers, but there's a lot to love in this follow-up to the Quantum Magician.
For those of us who love it, there's a lot of hi-tech spec-speak withNo spoilers, but there's a lot to love in this follow-up to the Quantum Magician.
For those of us who love it, there's a lot of hi-tech spec-speak with near-autistic mental states and high-computation, but there's also time-travel, a brand new con, and a twisty-turvy plot.
Sounds pretty standard, tho, right? There's a non-usual interesting tidbit that arrives, however. And I can't talk about it. You know. Fight club. But I really, really enjoyed the alien intelligences and everything surrounding them. You might say the hint is in the title of the book.
:)
This one may or may not be as strong as the first book, but there's nothing wrong with it. Slightly slow in the start, a bit heavy (or just right) on the quantum cognition stuff, but I figure that's something half of us either love or hate as a whole. :)
Mr. Hamilton does it again. But this time, rather than kicking off an epic war of dead people versus the living in a high-tech far-future space-opera,Mr. Hamilton does it again. But this time, rather than kicking off an epic war of dead people versus the living in a high-tech far-future space-opera, he twists us around a truly desperate struggle against very powerful aliens coming to "save" us, preserving us and sending us to the end of the universe where we will all share the experience together.
Sound like some religious nutters? They FEEL like religious nutters. And it's awesome. This is the start of the full-on conflict right here. All the human worlds, some alien help, and the full efforts of our own far-future humanity are set against this odd invasion.
And it's an extinction-level event.
Never mind that we have near-immortality, quantum entanglement transporters, von Neumann transhumanists, or some extreme printing technology, minds as big as moons, or anything we thought would make us amazingly resilient.
This is total war. And the twists to come are pretty damn amazing. No spoilers, but this is one of the more impressive novels by Hamilton. And when it comes to worldbuilding and storytelling and the epic, that's saying a lot....more
I'm generally not that big into short stories and by way of Hurley's introduction, I might have expected her to do a so-so job with these... but HurleI'm generally not that big into short stories and by way of Hurley's introduction, I might have expected her to do a so-so job with these... but Hurley lies. The writer's talents are equal across novels and short fiction. Sorry, Hurley, you're good! lol
Indeed, most of these stories are pretty amazing, delving not only into her Nyx fiction and Legion fiction and even Light Brigade, but this collection has a ton of stories that kicked me hard from a different world altogether. The only other series I haven't read is the Worldbreaker Saga and I'm honestly at a loss as to guess whether the other set of related stories revolving people jumping corpses is related to that or whether this is a taste of a brand new series to come.
If it is, I'm TOTALLY DOWN FOR IT.
Hey! Hey! But what about THIS short story collection? Is it GOOD?
Sorry? Didn't I say?
It's totally engrossing. :) Taken on its own without knowing any of the other novels, it completely works and showcases so much fungal growth, corpse making, body-horror, sexual-orientation-swapping, space-opera, disease-ridden, dog-loving joy as anyone could possibly want. And the worldbuilding is always extremely intense. :)
I will get around to her other novels, but in the meantime, I am on auto-read for anything new that Hurley throws at us. Eagerly....more
I'm generally a pretty big fan of transhumanist post-human SF full of uploaded minds and machine intelligences and I've been a fan of Ken MacLeod's shI'm generally a pretty big fan of transhumanist post-human SF full of uploaded minds and machine intelligences and I've been a fan of Ken MacLeod's short fiction in the past. And in general, this particular novel has all those same elements in spades.
So why did I give it three stars?
Because the story doesn't live up to the well-thought-out premises. I mean, hell, I LOVE the title now that I know that Corporation Wars has nothing to do with Corporations as we know them. It's referring to having corporeal bodies versus living entirely in a simulated reality. :) Hell, I did love all the switches and swaps between layers of simulated realities and the confusion as to what was really real and whether any of it mattered in the end. Living by robot? Why not? Live by simulation? Same difference.
Great ideas, LOTS of great action because this is a war-driven tale, but the confusion and the muddled story became a little too pronounced. And, let's face it, I got a little bored. I hate admitting that since I generally love these setups.
I had some really good fun with this book. The transhumanist elements, from all the various augs for the mind, body, and all the relevant lock-ins reqI had some really good fun with this book. The transhumanist elements, from all the various augs for the mind, body, and all the relevant lock-ins required to pilot, communicate, or engineer spacecraft is something I always tend to enjoy. It's realistic. After all, our bodies are such weak meat sacks. :)
In this case, our MC is got at from several directions all at once. Memory, behavior modification, social and political nastiness, all the way up to full and voluntary body control for the Space Opera elements.
The alien artifact, and I use the term lightly, adds a beautiful element to the rest, knocking the tale out of what really started feeling like a Becky Chambers novel right out of that orbit and into a straight adventure including a chase, more political horrors, the ghost of genocide, and tons of lies to work through with all the aliens and the "pirates".
I really enjoyed it. The ideas and the tech and the characters were all fascinating.
Unfortunately, there were a few parts that dragged, made me lost interest for a bit, before surprising me that I was enjoying myself again. BUT MOSTLY, the novel is one of the very best Space Operas I've seen for a while. With these caveats. It does the pushing of the envelope much better than most, and that's what I like to see even more than a character-heavy tale. But make no mistake, the characters are king, here. :)...more
I'm very pleased to have read this book. It states, concisely, the general field of AI research's BIG ISSUES. The paths to making AIs are only a part I'm very pleased to have read this book. It states, concisely, the general field of AI research's BIG ISSUES. The paths to making AIs are only a part of the book and not a particularly important one at this point.
More interestingly, it states that we need to be more focused on the dangers of superintelligence. Fair enough! If I was an ant separated from my colony coming into contact with an adult human being, or a sadistic (if curious) child, I might start running for the hills before that magnifying glass focuses the sunlight.
And so we move on to strategies, and this is where the book does its most admirable job. All the current thoughts in the field are represented, pretty much, but only in broad outlines. A lot of this has been fully explored in SF literature, too, and not just from the Asimov Laws of Robotics.
We've had isolation techniques, oracle techniques, and even straight tool-use techniques crop up in robot and AI literature. Give robots a single-task job and they'll find a way to turn it into a monkey's paw scenario.
And this just begs the question, doesn't it?
When we get right down to it, this book may be very concise and give us a great overview, but I do believe I'll remain an uberfan of Eliezer Yudkowsky over Nick Bostrom. After having just read Rationality: From AI to Zombies, almost all of these topics are not only brought up, but they're explored in grander fashion and detail.
What do you want? A concise summary? Or a gloriously delicious multi-prong attack on the whole subject that admits its own faults the way that HUMANITY should admit its own faults?
Give me Eli's humor, his brilliance, and his deeply devoted stand on working out a real solution to the "Nice" AI problem. :)
I'm not saying Superintelligence isn't good, because it most certainly is, but it is still the map, not the land. :) (Or to be slightly fairer, neither is the land, but one has a little better definition on the topography.) ...more
I just had to revisit the story before diving into the sequel, and it was as good as I remembered. I'm a very big fan of reality modifiRe-read 6/7/21:
I just had to revisit the story before diving into the sequel, and it was as good as I remembered. I'm a very big fan of reality modification, dreams, and quantum physics LIES. :)
Original Review:
You know those times when you're super anxious about new (to you) authors you request on Netgalley just by the looks of the cover?
Yeah, well, I think I've just found my second squeeworthy book for the year and I'm going to say just this one thing:
If there's any justice in the world, this book is going to get nominated and rise to the very top of the hopefuls for 2020's Hugo Awards for best novel.
Wow, right? Like, WHY?
It tickled ALL my hot buttons. I'm a superfan of good science, Hard-SF beautiful explorations, quantum computer AIs ascended to gods, and Outsider coolness that quacks like a Cthuhlu duck, walks like a Cthuhlu duck, and chatters with insanity in your ears with hundreds of tentacles and eyes as you just fall down the hole of imaginary numbers made real.
Oh, it has a great autistic scientist female in the lead, engaging in a cat-and-mouse chase with her old advisor who is guilty of unconscionable crimes against humanity and is a heretic of the AI gods.
Who is good and who is bad? Can she trust anyone? Is reality even what it seems?
Oh, yeah. This is the cat's meow. It has all the best features of Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire with a very different kind of story and flavor. Tentacles, madness, living alien spacecraft, altered reality, timey-wimey stuff... you name it, this has it. :)
AND I JUST EAT THIS STUFF UP. This is easily one of the two most squeeworthy SF's of the year and now I'm a life-long fan of this author.
*Squeedance* *Squeedance*
Let's get this one READ and talked about, folks!!!...more
As in, this is a goofy, fast-paced, unabashedly hard-SF, galaxy-spanning space-opera mania that mixes cloud-coFirst things first: I had a great time.
As in, this is a goofy, fast-paced, unabashedly hard-SF, galaxy-spanning space-opera mania that mixes cloud-computing universe-spanning quantum-computing with the afterlife, instant travel, world-eating gods, cyborgs, huge space battles, and a HUGE baddie in the Empress of Forever who is literally impossible to defeat because she IS the substrate of the entire universe I just described.
When it comes to the whole grab bag of SF concepts and the way it is all put together, this is no lightweight SF. It made me dance around, happy as a pig in muck, and I pretty much forgave anything else because Gladstone KNOWS his genre inside and out. I thought he couldn't be topped in the UF field, but I should have had a bit more faith. :)
So why aren't I giving this a full 5 stars? Because the plot is kinda standard and predictable. The twist, especially, and although I DID like the backward hints residing in the naming conventions that spelled it all out, the SECOND twist that I expected didn't come.
The characters were pretty fine. The focus did have some self-realization going on and this is definitely a Lesbian space adventure that has a lot of Iron Man overtones. Otherwise, the description in the blurb is accurate. Guardians of the Galaxy misfits, indeed. No complaints here.
Fun stuff, ESPECIALLY after you get through the opening bits in the book. It really takes off once a certain lady gets woken up. Definitely popcorn fiction for the nanotech infected galaxy. :)
But I have one caveat: Anyone reading Neal Asher needs to treat this one like the start of huge Endgame scenario with a full cataloFREAKING THRILLING.
But I have one caveat: Anyone reading Neal Asher needs to treat this one like the start of huge Endgame scenario with a full catalog of books having built-up to a huge crescendo. :)
The full importance of everything going on builds on all the enormous happenings from before, from the entity now known as Angel, so many AIs that have had big parts in previous novels, the entirety of Jain technology in all its forms (including Spatterjay), and the Prador. And then I'm still missing a few key players like Orlandine, Dragon, and The Client. :)
Never mind the old tech of U-Space missiles. The Jain is awake and the Librarian is ACTIVE. One little soldier from 5 million years ago is more than enough to take down the entire freaking Polity. And when you start realizing that a gun that fires BLACK HOLES is still too-little, too late to turn the tide, you know you're in DEEP S**T.
These are some HUGE events and I have to admit I'm freaked out. Most Space Opera can't come near this. At all.
Asher does High-High Tech like few others. I LOVE the feeling of true dread. If planetary AIs are running scared, you know you've hit on something big. :)...more
This one was one rather huge surprise for me. I mean, I liked the exploration bits and the mental disability bits in the first novel. It felt genuine This one was one rather huge surprise for me. I mean, I liked the exploration bits and the mental disability bits in the first novel. It felt genuine and fascinating.
But this one took on a whole different feel. Cyberpunk, a heavily populated society, massive injustice, social inequality, and institutionalized slavery based on credits and indenture. I loved this aspect. I felt harrowed and despairing even as I railed against it with our main character... who has been S*** upon for 23 years, dreams of decent meals, and lives a life equivalent to a labor camp... AS a murder investigator.
Say what? Yep, specialized training, a chip in his head, wide powers to hunt down mysteries... and yet he's still pretty much a slave.
Cool, right?
The characterizations are all fantastic, claustrophobic, and I FEEL the need to solve the murder if only to get my mind off my horrible situation. Ahem. I mean, the CHARACTER's situation. :)
As a full-on murder mystery, I had a great time. As a worldbuilding novel, I was fascinated by so many of these details... especially the Circle. But as a character novel, I think I loved it the best.
Very well worth the read and my personal favorite between the two novels and one novelette I read. :)...more
I'm caught in gravity's tug. I'm stuck between two massive bodies forever tidally locked. ; ;
You know those books that have that certain something thaI'm caught in gravity's tug. I'm stuck between two massive bodies forever tidally locked. ; ;
You know those books that have that certain something that could make them truly great but then they stumble because of the characters within them?
Yeah. This is one of those novels. I can see and appreciate where the author is trying to go here with the characters so full of themselves, their ideals, or their misunderstandings of one another. It fits so nicely with the greater misunderstandings between the Gelids and humanity... but I have to say that the fundamental concept here is much, much easier to take than the execution.
The bad part of this novel:
Every time I wanted to find some truly great aspect of personality or plot push to latch my hopes on, I was faced with regular people doing stupid things for regular stupid reasons, muddying the waters and generally being jerks to one another. I didn't particularly like any of the main characters except, perhaps, Mouth.
And then the good:
Everything else!
This is the definition of uneven for me. I can appreciate, intellectually, what is going on, but when you can't hang your consciousness on great characters to move you along a MUCH better worldbuilding experience, it becomes something of a drag. In fact, I became so invested in the plethora of great ideas that I kept re-writing the book in my own mind to fly with them in new ways, extending dichotomy between the hurting human city and the alien, maligned Gelids living everywhere in the dark, being tentacular monsters, but also BETTER PEOPLE than those inside the human habitations. :)
It's not just that, though. I loved the tidally locked planet, all the darkness and the need for other perceptions, the communication through tentacles, the transformations, the culture, and everything else about the SFnal experience.
I FELT like this novel could have been one of the greats. It certainly has all the deep explorations of culture, aliens, and setting, giving us a very dark look at a far-future humanity with a lot more to think about than is generally the case. Classic SF always did a pretty good job of this but sometimes a novel or two drills down DEEPER. And this is one.
So I'm caught between a solid 3-star read for characters modified by a cool mirroring with the theme and a very solid 5 star SFnal novel. ; ;
This isn't much like All the Birds in the Sky, alas, but I'm very curious to see what she'll come up with next....more
This is a surprisingly fast and fun cyberpunk read, less concerned with the punk and more in tune with the cyber.
It's Cyborg City! Sort of. The town iThis is a surprisingly fast and fun cyberpunk read, less concerned with the punk and more in tune with the cyber.
It's Cyborg City! Sort of. The town is built into a floating city where robotics flourished and the human element languished. Transhumanist paradise, only it's no paradise. The author gives us cool characters who either uphold the law, create the tech, consume the tech in a big way (cyborg boy!) or otherwise support those who must.
The details and scope are very important in this short novel. Themes, as well. Are we the pieces of our body, or will we forever be whittled down to lease-parts and remaining biology? The injustice of high-cost prosthetics, mortgaging your very life and mobility because you have a disease or are otherwise crippled, is insane to contemplate. Especially when companies can just demand you give your leg back. Or your whole body.
The novel quickly turns into a furiously excellent action thriller that I could literally see and enjoy in my mind's eye with perfect clarity. I could almost feel the explosions, the bullets, and the wild glee. :)...more
This is easily the best Asher novel I've read. I'm kinda surprised.
I mean, between Pennyroyal and the whole hooder transformation, with so much body This is easily the best Asher novel I've read. I'm kinda surprised.
I mean, between Pennyroyal and the whole hooder transformation, with so much body horror, memory modifications, and the multiple-revenge storylines with all these characters clashing against each other, I was blown away.
Most of the other Asher novels had big action, flashy action, and a plethora of great ideas, but the characters were often hitting the level of interesting or adequate. There was something cartoonish about them.
Not this. I loved this. Every single character felt like an ensemble cast all converging upon something really awesome and hardcore... and it delivers. :) These AIs are MESSED UP. :)
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of novels either set in Africa or Nigeria in specific, ranging from complicated crime tales or wild fantasies or hardcoLately, I've been seeing a lot of novels either set in Africa or Nigeria in specific, ranging from complicated crime tales or wild fantasies or hardcore SF.
This one is more hardcore than most. The SF branches into the Zenosphere, alien-headspaces, biopunk nightmares and symbioses and regular everyday Lagos and Nigerian, in general, misbehavior. :)
This novel is packed to the gills with great ideas, interesting storytelling structure set in two times, and a very interesting re-take on the old trope of telepathy and noir/spy fiction. To speak of the little parts as if they are the best part is to miss the point, however. As a whole, the novel flies through wild magic-realm-like excursions, flesh-eating biomorphs, bank-fraud prevention, and very real alien invasion stories.
Am I impressed? Intimidated? Thrilled? Yes. All of the above.
But one thing should be made very clear: in some ways, the alien is not so much the SF elements, but Rosewater, itself. Culture is STRANGE. Be prepared for a weird ride. :)...more
This isn't a bad thing. I love neurotech and transhumanist stories and lFrom the get-go I was reminded of a direct mix of Nexus and Europe in Autumn.
This isn't a bad thing. I love neurotech and transhumanist stories and love spy fiction couched as Courriers. So based on nothing more than the blurb and a Netgalley interest, I tore through this book and quite enjoyed it.
Who doesn't like to do clandestine data handoffs through their blood, become invisible to all sensors, or otherwise erase your identity in favor of being a hardcore member of a spy network in a futuristic Earth city under a dome with archeological layers of city life within? You know, with the poor down below and the rich up above?
Uh, right. That doesn't sound too good, even if direct mind-to mind linking is possible and it encourages a level of intimacy unheard of except among full telepaths. Or the wild virtual games that are better than life. Unfortunately, the haves and the have-nots take up the crux of the novel.
I thought it was going to be more about intimacy avoidance and layers of consciousness and identity, and there was a lot of that, but most of it revolved around economics, re-terraforming our own planet, and other dystopian stuff. I liked the early spy stuff quite a bit more than the later stuff. :)
All in all, it was a very enjoyable mix of tech and the future vision of dystopia with a bit of romance, rebellion, and funky spy-stuff. :) Quite decent for what it is: some fluff, some angst, great tech, and an overarching idea. :)...more
It's really hard to describe this novel in a way that can do it justice because any cursory explanation such as "plotless" and "characterless" has somIt's really hard to describe this novel in a way that can do it justice because any cursory explanation such as "plotless" and "characterless" has some rather negative connotations. :)
Indeed, it's kinda impossible to have those here except in brief glances relying on bird's eye views before necessarily jumping on to the next BIG IDEA and Super-Imaginative setting.
For what we have here, way back in 1930, is novel of Future History influencing every big SF author of the day, even influencing Winston Churchill, HG Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and countless SF writers ever since.
Why? Let me do this quick: Eighteen iterations of mankind over a billion years, from the total death of our mankind, the evolutionary re-emergence of the next, the differences, oddities, rediscoveries after soooo much time, the new dreams, aspirations, religions, the different values, before the next mankind dies off. We have Martian invasion, we have our invasion of Venus, we have major genetic modifications, telepathy during other iterations, the ability to experience racial memory a-la Dune, adding multiple sexes, immortality, living in gas giants, and sometimes merely striving only to improve the human race. Over a billion years. And of course, whole races die. Over and over.
It's grand, majestic, awe-some, and brilliant.
So much imagination is crammed into so few pages that a prospective SF author could just pour through this and continue to point at reused story ideas for even current-day authors! I look at the nuclear-powered version of life on Venus, the intelligent clouds of Mars, the huge brains, the musical race, the race of time-travelers, and my jaw just drops.
It's not without emotion, either. There's a deep an abiding love for everyone here even as a whole race suffers deep ennui and an existential crisis or during others that suffer impossible odds, accidents, or the final death of our solar system. The philosophies give it away. The spirit of the human races rise and ebb and undergo vast changes.
And yet there's no characters or plot. Just setting and world-building and vast movements of so many people. :)
It would never get published today.
And yet, it's still brilliant. Absolutely worth knowing, even now. :) It makes me wonder what we're collectively doing. We can't forget that works like this EXIST. :)...more
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