1970: The Fall of the Towers (Delany, Samuel R.)

Semi-coherent, character fueled, radioactive thrill (4/5)
From March 11, 2011

I've only read two Delany novels prior to picking up the Fall of the Towers trilogy: The Einstein Intersection (2/5 for its incoherent quest) and Dhalgren (3/5 for its impressive length and inventiveness). The synopsis for The Fall of the Towers sounded like it may be an interesting story/test/pursuit so I decided to gamble on this for my third, and maybe last, Delany novel. Beyond the first book's near-incoherent ending, the rest of the trilogy is an intricately woven future Earth, the plot full of rich characters and the backdrop exposing an interesting history. It may well be the most un-Delany-like novel yet, which is perhaps why I liked it so much, but is was an articulate, inventive, and flexible read altogether.

Rear cover synopsis:
"The Empire of Toromon was the last hope and refuge of mankind. Sealed off the the charred radioactive wastlelands by the radiation barrier, the Empire survived to face new adversaries deadlier even than the Great Fire. The Lord of the Flames, a force of evil devoid of physical substance. The berserk computer which guided the Empire's military complex. And an alien intelligence which crossed the abyss of space in search of new worlds to conquer."

*****

The Fall of the Towers 1: Out of the Dead City (1966) - 3/5 - An unknown planet is host to a radiation barrier. On one side are the humans which have a historical reminder of the terrible war and the other rests a glimmering yet dead city. The feudal kingdom is home to a weakened king and a promising heir to the throne. When the prince is kidnapped by a menagerie of colorful characters, the kind announces war on the unknown enemy beyond the radiation barrier. One man has been gifted a crystallized body structure to be withstand the barrier's radiation but also enables him to become transparent in certain light. It's with his gift and abilities that lead the colorful assembly to forge through the barrier in hopes of disarming the coming war.

Typical of a Delaney novel, from the onset the initial pattern of events is difficult to fathom--characters are disjointed and events are timelessly situated. But once the grooves begin to merge, an excitement unseen in other Delaney novels brings unsurpassed witticism and a powerful plot flow. A ravenous surge of power is witnessed. The falling of the pieces was epically plotted, great stuff. This is wondrous stuff but it soon lost me towards the ending pages when, like typical Delaney, the plot takes on ethereal essence with very little synchronization of the plot just laid out pages prior to the ambiguity.

*****

The Fall of the Towers 2: The Towers of Toron (1964) - 4/5 - Where as Out of the Dead City accumulated the characters and plot into a semi-coherent flow (utterly disregarding the ending) and bestowed its density into its pages, The Towers of Toron ushers in a sort of comfort with the way things have been laid out in the previous book. The characters are recognizable even after three months and the plot is familiar, the vibe is easy is see. The plot's cadence isn't bewildering or enigmatic as with most other Delany novels. The Towers of Toron is as simple as a Delany novel must get, a derelict trilogy from his earlier days prior to his success with Dhalgren and The Einstein Intersection.

Though I was loathing the start of this book after the semi-disappointing previous novel, I was quickly encompassed in the plot yet still held a reserved doubt as to the rational of the fantasy/sci-fi mix. The ever present Lord of the Flame is on the loose with the its greater-good nemeses close on the heel, unveiling its subterfuge of war and suffering. The convergence of personal story lines is a fine addition, combing the many walks of life which The Fall of the Towers world provides: the military beyond the barrier, the traveling circus, the palace grounds and the forest dwelling. The plot's unfolding is coherent and interesting, only briefly meandering into a surreal realm which Delany is so fond of penning.

*****

The Fall of the Towers 3: City of a Thousand Suns (1965) - 4/5 - From the onset of this third book in this trilogy, its obvious that Delany is taking a different literary route than the previous two books. Book one was more artistic, bordering on avant garde in some areas. Book two was more adventurous, expanding the horizons of possibility for the trilogy. And finally, Book three is a mix of humor and philosophy. City of a Thousand Suns is much more fun the previous two books with a surprising cavalcade of half-forgotten characters crossing paths and Delany's imperial insight into the expanding world of old Earth. Combine this with a heavily philosophical last five or ten percent, the contrast is both impressive and captivating.

Having actually liked Book two, I was eager to start Book three and was met by the familiar scene of the alien entities in The City conversing about three humans on Earth impressed upon by the powerful tri-entity, what is needed from the said humans and how the Lord of the Flames may act to disrupt their plans. The Lord of the Flames takes a backseat in this novel, allowing the story to focus heavily upon character interaction (a real highlight) and the quest to gain access to the psychotic computer (the same computer which fabricated the war in Book two). With the city of Toron under fire from remote controlled armaments, a quest is began which will take the reader from the Devil's Pot, over the sea, into the newly established city of which the title takes its name from and into the realm of the computer. Pretty good stuff!

1973: The Unreal People (Siegel, Martin)

Amidst social decay blossoms revolt (4/5)

Lancer Books had a brief experimental tryst with Martin Siegel in 1969 with Agent of Entropy and in 1973 with The Unreal People. Both books were only published once and left to ebb in the waters of science fiction obscurity. This book was published posthumously after the author's death in 1972. As short as his run at science fiction was, he left an esoteric yet indelible impression on the sub-genre of underground settings, much akin to Guy Snyder's Testament XXI, which, oddly enough, was also publish in 1973 and Louis Trimble's The City Machine (1972), where the oppressed citizens of another hierarchical status and tower strata seek for change by moving OUT of their closed-system society.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Memories of Earth... the world had once been free. Men walked openly in the sunlight, gazed at the starry night, dreamed of conquests greater than that of just staying alive. But freedom had died a long time ago, so many hundreds of years in the past that no one really remembered any longer what freedom really meant. Earth was still there, a few hundred feet over their heads, while men crawled through the ancient tunnels like animals, kept in subjugation by drugs, slaves to the most corrupt government ever conceived--but none dared go there. The surface was dead, poisoned, taboo--until the children of Earth's last generation forced their way out of humankind's grave!"

Less than a dozen floors below the once great city of New York lies the derelict remains of earth's humankind, the filthy enclave a result of an unknown earth-wide cataclysm. In a strata of subterranean and social hierarchy, the First Guides are the privileged class, while on the opposite end of the social spectrum are those living in the Rat Hole. Regardless of wealth or status, it's obvious to everyone that conditions in the complex are deteriorating: the air is more stale, the water is putrid, the food rations are dwindling, and the infant death rate is depressingly high. At the center of the city's existence is the Machine:

Down at the lowest level, far south of the main ganglia of the city, where even the rats seldom went, was Machine, which automatically kept the city clean and sucked some food from the water. Nobody took care of it. The mechanisms were sealed and automatic. Nobody even knew how it worked. (127)

The hellish conditions of the city imbibe their own form of escapism through the government-sanctioned church called the Psychedelic Pswastika:

...offically known as the Cathedral of St. Sominex, PEP (Psychedelic Eclectic Presbyterian)... The religious functions included marriage and death rites; marriage and death counselling; psychoanalytic therapy; other forms of therapy including Reichian, Learyan, Mailerian, Encounter and Botulistic; the Holy Hookers; the drug machines but not the liquor business; the nightclub show, and the pawnshop. (16)

While the First Guides hold a lion's share of the profits from the Psychedelic Pswastika, the shares are lesser for those working further under the tyrant hand of the First Guides. Conrad is second in command of the Narko Skwad and earns a mere pittance from the profits. His disenfranchisement in communal affairs and the loss of his newborn baby have brought him to the wilted edge of the bough of sanity. He decides to kick the habit of the mandatory "loyalty drug" and incur its unpleasant side effects, to partake in treasonous affairs, and to co-plot the murder of the First Guides.

The mention of "Sominex" is a page one introduction to the drug use in the book. Diphenhydramine is only the mildest of drugs used to induce relaxation, inhibition, suggestiveness, and rapture. The protagonist Conrad is often accompanied by his water pipe, while students at the Vincent Price Community College ingest, inhale, or intravenously take their professor-prescribed drugs in order to facilitate their learning (two of the majors offered are Twentieth Century Horror and I-Hate-To-Cookology). The drug use of prevalent but it doesn't override the plot's flow into a psychotropic eddy of imagery and thought association. Only during "Part Two: Conrad's Dream" does the reader get a 24-page surreal view from the use of the "nerve machine" which causes him to detemporalize his memories and forecasts.

The rest of the book dabbles in minor characters tied in with Conrad's life, all of which somehow connect with his plan to assassinate the First Guides and run off to the "out side," where nature has overtaken the city and rumors of illness and radiation keep the people cowering underground. The way Siegel keeps the focus on the grimy tunnel city is unique, as most other authors tend to stray away from their fantastic plot settings in order to chase plot twists and obvious tropes. Siegel keeps is real and he keeps it interesting... and he even drops of huge "uncertainty bomb" is "Part Two."

But Siegel is also inconsistent in his prose. Most of the novel is written without any sort of flare besides the above mentioned focus on the underground city. His characterization of the city's culture is as great as is his personification of Conrad with his hair-trigger finger, dispassionate service, and world-weariness. But his prose fails him sometimes because of his attempt to cross-over the sensation that not everything is kosher in Dodge City... some passages are so herky-jerky that the reading is teeth-clenching-ly bad: "He felt cold. His bowels were in working order but they didn't feel good." (67) and "Coy flashes and twitchings of maniac electricity made the muscles of his thighs and arms move like robot things." (93)

But then Siegel reels the reader back into the poetic fold with:

Suns burst in his head. Sometimes they were the hot suns of deserts--huge blasting balls of heat--sometimes the red eyes of sunset of dying planets; sometimes the blinding but wonderful suns of spring mornings; sometimes even the cool calm peace of the moon. (94)

and

The old man was praying. A mumbling sound, wordless, came from his lips. After a while the cadence merged into one band of sound--like a whispering under the pounding of surf on the ocean. The old man heard the ocean returning to him as if his prayer reechoed back through invisible seashells pressed to his ears. (131)

So, through the syrupy passages of descriptive bliss and gritty travels through one-word sentences and three-word dialogue, Siegel pens a pretty good novel about the inhabitants of a closed-system city wishing to venture out. Methinks I'll give Agent of Entropy a shot, if I can find it. With only two obscure novels penned by this author, it should be hard to come by.

1959: Level 7 (Roshwald, Mordecai)

Hermetic solitude 4400 feet deep is true freedom (5/5)
From May 28, 2009

Splashed across the cover of Level 7 reads, "A horrifying, prophetic document of the future - the diary of a man living 4000 feet underground in a society hell-bent on atomic self-destruction" which does the book no justice at all. Perhaps the rear cover puts the novel into a better light as it reads, "He is safe from nuclear war... safe from sunshine, blue skies, and love. His perpetual assignment is the Bomb - to stand guard ready to push the button that will turn the world into a charred ember of smoking death..." Now, while the back cover sums up the story better, it still doesn't do the book much justice.

It's not exactly poetically sculpted nor is it poorly written, rather, it's a day-to-day journal of a not-so-common man in his not-so-common job and his contemplations on earth's situation, his reflections on his subterranean society and his experiences being a push-button operator. Officer X-127, as he's know to his colleagues, friends and eventual wife paints a detailed picture of what Level 7 is, how it operates and what purpose it ultimately serves. Being 4400 feet underground in a hermetically sealed bunker and being twelve buttons away from the end of the world might make you a bit philosophical, psychotic or just plain numb. We witness the scope of these mental reflections in both X-127 himself and in the others around him.

It's a depressing read, that's true. It'll make you sympathize with all five-hundred of the Level 7 cave-dwellers, the other million or so making up the remaining six levels and even the poor populous stranded on the surface. Level 6 at 3,000 feet deep houses 2,000 military defense personnel and is just as self-sufficient at Level 7, but more prone to contamination, old age and insanity. Level 5 at 1,500 feet deep will house 20,000 elite members of society for about 200 years. Level 4 at 1,000 feet deep will hold 100,000 important people for 100 years. Level 3 is 500 feet deep and will hold 200,000 important individuals for only 25 years. The last two Levels are 100 feet and 60 feet deep and are both designed to hold one million people each but are much more susceptible to all things dangerous in a limited or total nuclear war.

There's so much detail, it's almost juicy if it weren't dryly written. For the sheer sake of exploring Roshwald's leveled world, this is a sci-fi gem.

2006: Odyssey (McDevitt, Jack)

Overdrawn at the Idea Bank since Day One (2/5)

The fifth book in the Academy series is just as bad as the previous four. I initially liked The Engines of God when I read it four years ago, but I bet if I were to pick it up now, I'd find exactly the same faults as I did with the rest of the series: painful word repetition, inane details throughout, padding the pages for word count, and high-handed proselytizing ala Christopher Hutchins. Tack onto this an abrupt knee-jerk reaction to start the novel with a useless sub-plot and, wah-lah, you have yourself a typical McDevitt novel.

Following the incident of stranded space craft, the trustworthiness of Academy's fleet is questioned by Priscilla. The craft should have been lost round Betelgeuse IV but was actually found to be within our own solar system, an engine failure which could have resulted in the death of crew members. The aging fleet is put on hold at the same time when reports of mysterious black orbs, called Moonriders, have been flying past stations of humanity across the stars. Silently investigative in nature, there have been no threats or warnings given by the orbs.

A numerous political moves, Priscilla and director Michael Asquith decide to provide one more mission to track and witness the Moonriders, to prove whether they are projections of idle minds or alien entities policing human activity. Considered to be a routine drop-and-go mission, PR director Eric Samuels decides to take a risk in his humdrum life and tag along with the sultry Greek pilot Valya Kouros, the wide-eyed teen-aged daughter of Senator Taylor, and the loud-mouthed firebrand Gregory MacAllister of Deepsix infamy.

When a giant asteroid is found to be directly aimed at an orbiting construction of a hotel owned by Orion Tours, the finger-pointing at the Moonriders becomes priority and calls for space armament are rampant through world congress. The benevolent actions of Orion Tour's selfless duty of diverting another asteroid and their awkward stance in the middle of its hotel destruction has them under the eye of the ever-vigilant MacAllister.

Somewhere in all of this is Priscilla, who, like in Omega, takes a backseat role in the plot. She's stuck behind her administrative desk directing ships to distant ports, calling in favors from orbital friends, and ordering coffee and jelly-smeared bagels. She and the Academy as a whole should have come out spotless after the rescue of the Goompahs under the attack of the Omega cloud in Omega. But just a few years later and the interest in the space program is waning; funds are being diverted from space exploration to earth conservation. If the Goompahs were so hugely popular (there's even merchandising of Moonriders like the Goompahs in Omega), then why has the interest waned to much?

I mentioned above one irksome quality of McDevitt's novels: word repetition. I've been mentioning in my other McDevitt reviews of his bizarre fascination for describing the height of every character in the novel. In Omega along, I counted the adjective "tall" exactly seventeen times when describing stature. All the other adjectives don't even come close. EXACTLY the same here in Odyssey. "Short" and "little" are both used once, "big" is written twice, "average" is used three times, "small" is used five times... and "tall" is written SIXTEEN times (pages 15, 30, 33, 39, 43, 56, 89, 116, 143, 258, 291, 314, 331, 388, 391, and 392). What the hell is Jack's affinity for describing everyone as "tall"? What's worse than that? How about using "of course" about 90 times... aggravating! Where's the editor?

Other annoyances are his overuse of naming fictional book titles that the characters are reading, specifying every food and drink order, and quoting Gregory MacAllister ad nauseam (McDevitt writing himself in the book?). I hated MacAllister in Deepsix and was thankful when that loathsome character took a far, far backseat in Chindi and Omega. Unfortunately, MacAllister makes a grand reappearance in Odyssey, where his (McDevitt's?) firebrand thoughts are not only heading each chapter, but he also orchestrates an unrelated sub-plot revolving around one man, Henry Beemer, who hit Reverend Pullman over the head with book. Beemer insists that the fire-smoldering hell preached by Pullman has made him neurotic and attempts to frame organized religion as hate-loving idiots.

With one book in the series left on my shelf, Cauldron, I've set the goal to complete the series because my father gave them all to me. I hope either Priscilla bites the dust or the entire Milky Way galaxy is wiped of the human race. One of these two conclusions will energize me enough to give it av3-star rating even with the foreseen annoyances McDevitt has laden like landmines. And the like th previous Academy books, this one is flying off my shelf and going to the second-hand bookstore, where I exchange it for something decent.

2006: Galactic North (Reynolds, Alastair)

Good overview of Revelation Space history (4/5)
From April 19, 2009

A pretty good collection of short stories and novellas taking place in Revelation Space, which includes Chasm City, Yellowstone, the Glitter Band (and Rust Belt), the Melding Plague, the Inhibitors (only mentioned), and all the factions of humans in the future history. Altogether it's a satisfying inclusion to the Revelation Space series. However, I think his stories in Zima Blue were of better quality overall. The eight stories include:

Great Wall of Mars - 4/5: Taking place in Revelation Space when humankind was still inside its' own solar system. The Conjoiners have a Mars base and who are at differences with the Demarchists. Explore the budding relationship between the two human sects and even the relationship between the to-be-famous Conjoiner Galiana and Demarchist Nevil Clavain. Its antiquity is an interest. 51 pages

Glacial - 3/5: In the immediate post-Great Wall of Mars time, Galiana and Clavain descend upon a mysterious frigid planet which already has an American scientific base. The question as to how they got there and why they got there is not satisfyingly answered. But how the one survivor lived while the rest of the crew died proved to be mediocre. 51 pages

A Spy in Europa - 5/5: After the moon of Europa is colonized with underwater cities, word of a Demarchist hyperdiamond shard sparks a back-stabbing spy mission which may put power into the hands of the Gilgamesh Isis. Extreme surgery, rumors of shark/human hybrids and bloodshed follows. 23 pages

Weather - 5/5: In the Yellowstone colonization era, an Ultra reefersleeper craft is pursued by a pirate ship which is left ruined. In the wreck, the Ultra crew plunder the pirate ship and discover a out-of-place Conjoiner woman, who is despised by the Ultra captain. Can the solo Conjoiner survive, appease relations and even serve the ship? 57 page

Dilation Sleeper - 4/5: Takes place during the post-Melding Plague era. A reefersleeper in deep space is woken early to perform surgery on fellow sleeper with the Melding Plague. Reconstruct on his former wife on Yellowstone guides him through his awaking. 16 pages

Grafenwalder's Bestiary - 4/5: A Xenozoological collector in Rust Belt above Yellowstone competes for fame with a new unknown collector after both receiving a rare specimen from Sky's Edge. Each successive oddity must be outdone to draw prestige. 48 pages

Nightingale - 4/5: Three veterans from Sky's Edge's Southland Militia and Northern Coalition are gathered to capture a Colonel Jax, rumored via the Ultras to be hidden away in a wartime hospital ghost ship. With his capture they hope to crucify him, but even finding him in the floating derelict seems hopeless. It's a tad predictable, but maintains nice theme of space horror. 73 pages

Galactic North- 3/5: A multi-millennial plot where a reefersleeper ramliner is boarded by pirates who steal 200 sleepers. The ramliner captain seeks here long revenge and retrieval of the sleepers across the galactic north plane. I reread the story but I still don't know what a greenfly is and how it did what it did. 41 pages

1999: Teranesia (Egan, Greg)

Archipelagic fauna uniformly mutate (4/5)

As far as I know, Greg Egan isn't one of those authors who slough off a novel ever year, shrugs, and says Take it or leave it. On the flip-side, Greg Egan is a rare author who writes for himself (throw Gene Wilde in to the bag, too). I imagine that he pours over science literature, something ignites his curiosity and creativity, then he sits down and creates a science fiction world for himself... and it just happens to sell moderately well. Like Gene Wolfe's cryptic/mythological/religious and convoluted-yet interesting stories, I doubt anyone understands everything the Egan has penned into his hard science novels. But the reader isn't in place "to understand" then novel, rather the reader puts themselves at the mercy of Egan's writing in order to experience the sheer depth of possibility.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Prabir Suresh and his younger sister, Madhusree, live in a remote paradise called Teranesia, where their biologist parents are studying an unexplained genetic mutation among the island's butterflies. Then civil war erupts across Indonesia, shattering their idyllic world and their lives. Twenty years later, Prabir is still plagued by feelings of guilt and an overwhelming responsibility for his sister, now a biologist herself. Against his advice, Madhusree is returning to Teranesia to solve the mystery of the butterflies and study strange new plant and animal species that have been emerging throughout the region--species separated from their known cousins by dramatic mutations that seem far too efficient to have arisen by chance. Afraid for her safety, Prabir joins forces with independent scientist Martha Grant to find her. But what he will discover on Teranesia is far more dangerous and wondrous than he can ever fear--or imagine..."

As a precocious pre-teen on Indonesian island, Prabir is fascinated by the science surrounding him, but it's also the bane of his life as his parents dedicate much of their time to unraveling the mystery of the mutated butterflies which inhabit their island, Teranesia. Virtually raising his sister by himself, Prabir is protective of her even while on the island. When a tragedy forces them to evacuate the island, the two travel by sea under the gloomy awning of a civil war. Eventually, they emigrate to Toronto to live with their aunt.

Eighteen years later and now an undergraduate, Prabir's sister has the opportunity to travel to the same archipelago to study the oddly evolving wildlife with some post-doctoral students. Prabir continues to shelter Madhusree from the ugly truth of the island tragedy and urges her not to leave. After she departs on her biological study, Prabir's conscious gets the best of him and books a ticket to travel to the same archipelago, unbeknown to Madhusree. His tracking of the scientists is hastened by an solo scientist who is also in the area to study the uniform mutations of the local species.

As they island hop, the duo discover the exact same mutations in the exact same species of bird. The ubiquitous mutations also affect the ant colonies, the reptiles, and even the flora where orchids carnivorously devour their captured prey and the shrubs grow barbs when no herbivorous species are near. With all the data gathered being shared for free online, some fantastic discoveries are being made... some even more fantastic hypotheses are trickled out, which, if true, will shatter the foundations of genetics an evolution.

Unlike the Egan I know, the author dons the hat of the humorist in Teranesia, something I don't remember seeing in his other books I've read: Quarantine, Diaspora or Permutation City. While the relationship between Prabir and his sister is trying at times, the other two relationships Prabir experiences (with his parter Felix in Toronto and his fellow scientist Marge) offer him a release to his pent up frustration with having to emotionally protect younger sister for years. Or perhaps Egan was just having some fun:

"Prabir bought a syrupy fruit concoction whose contents defied translation; the bartender assured him it was nonalcoholic, but that seemed to be based on the dubious assumption that the whole thing wouldn't spontaneously ferment before his eyes, like an overripe mango. Prabir took one sip and changed his mind; the sugar concentration was high enough to kill any microorganisms by sheer osmosis." (148)

In contrast to this is Egan's typical unfathomable techno-spiels, where his review of science literature leaves his access to specialized vocabulary only vaguely familiar to the reader. He doesn't continue his techno-tirades through pages and pages, but only a paragraph or two to tweak the interest of the reader's scientific nipple:

"One of the many approximations made by the modelers involved the quantum state of the protein, which was described mathematically in terms of eigenstates for the bonds between atoms: quantum states that possessed definite values for such things as the position of the bond and its vibrational energy." (286-287)

It's not as off-putting as it may sound, because Egan always has an ulterior motive behind his inclusion on the moderate level of nonsense. Eventually he'll focus on the crux of the major scientific wonder, extreme and hypothetical as it may be, and you'll be reeling aghast at the possibilities Egan can draw up. Teranesia maintains this Egan-specific quality but it happens at such a late point in the book that much of the reality-application of the discovery is left untested. But like Quarantine, Diaspora, and Permutation City, the book rates highly (all 4- or 5-star rating).

1997: Diaspora (Egan, Greg)

Accelerating the genre w/ indecipherable hard science (4/5)
From October 31, 2010

Diaspora reads more like a series of interconnected short stories than a solid novel like Egan's Permutation City or Quarantine. Much like Charles Stross's Accelerando (which was admittedly published in 2005 compared to Egan's earlier 1997), there is an acceleration in technology towards the mythical technological singularity, each short story driving the science further and further.

Rear cover synopsis:
"It is the thirtieth century. The "world" has evolved into a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the solar system into one scrape from the outer planets to the sun. Humanity, too, has reconfigured itself. Most people have chosen immortality, joining the posises to become conscious software. Others have opted for disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world. A few holdouts stubbornly remain fleshers struggling to shape an antiquated existence in the muck and jungle of Earth. And then there is the Orphan, a genderless digital being grown from a mind seed. When an unforeseen disaster ravages the fleshers, it awakens the polises to the possibility of their own extinction from bizarre astrophysical processes that seemingly violate fundamental laws of nature. It is up to the Orphan and a group of refugees to find the knowledge that will save them all--a search that will lead them on a quantum adventure to a higher dimension beyond the macrocosmos..."


As mentioned above, my experience with Egan's novels are drawn at Permutation City and Quarantine. Each of these novels was rich in science and had my head spinning like a cyclotron of wonder. The science was deep but it wasn't over my head like I needed to skip entire paragraphs to get past the meat. However, in Diaspora it's exactly the opposite. There's like room was awe to blossom as the meat of the science was so dense I found myself just skimming paragraphs and sometimes entire pages.

Don't get me wrong, the direction Egan takes is impressive, it's big; the ideas go unchallenged as far as I'm concerned in the realm of science fiction. The characters refiguring the long established physics upon witnessing an impossible event is so deeply engrained in the cast's psyche that it's even possible the Egan, himself, dares to challenge modern theories on theoretical physics. It's big... but it's not an easy read nor is it, at times, a particularly enjoyable journey.

I don't read Egan for his straightforward writing style, but he surprised me a few times with some clever, insightful prose to contrast his rambling science bits. Best example was on page 208 in the first paragraph of a new story: "...the occasion seemed to demand the complete ritual of verisimilitude, the ornate curlicued longhand of imitation physical cause and effect." Actually, that entire chapter is composed of a mere two paragraphs but easily stands out from the rest of the book as if touched by Midas himself. I've never seen any author describe the sky as isotropic.

As much as I would like to give a synopsis of each short story, the amount of work it would entail would be equally as arduous as some of the passages about six-dimensional physics and spatial awareness. Each of the nine stories was a solid 4-of-5 star rating while the final story sort of lost steam and fell behind with 3 stars.