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In the deep future mankind is barely distinguishable from machine intelligences, rarely embodied outside of virtual environments. It is time, using the very building blocks of time and space, to engineer the universe itself. Time to enter a new quantum realm of marvels and terrors.
The new novel from one of the worlds most respected and acclaimed writers marks a dramatic move into a new arena ¿ that of the wide screen SF epic ala Baxter, Banks, Hamilton and Macleod. Novels such as this have proved to be the engine house for both the major sales and the best ideas of modern SF. That the genre¿s primary ideas man and one of its finest prose stylists should direct his energies to this sort of canvas promises much. This will be Greg Egan¿s breakout book.
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Review:
Greg Egan's ability to imagine wonders of cosmic scale is shown again in his SF novel Schild's Ladder, with future galactic society confronting a disaster of almost unimaginable vastness--or is it a springboard to new hope?
Book Description:
The fatal experiment was right at the edge of theoretical physics. Could there be an alternative structure for vacuum itself, the void underlying our cosmos? Unfortunately, yes. Once created, this artificial "novo-vacuum" successfully competes with normal space, expanding at half the speed of light in an all-consuming sphere. Inside, physics is radically, incomprehensibly different...
Six centuries later, thousands of inhabited solar systems have been gobbled. Scientists investigating the novo-vacuum from starship Rindler are split between trying to destroy it with tailored spatial viruses ("Planck worms") and hoping to understand the teeming richness beyond that deadly interface.
In a lonely galaxy where only humans are intelligent, whole planets have been evacuated to give microscopic alien organisms their chance to evolve. The novo-vacuum may be bursting with new orders of life, so that killing it would be a monstrous act of genocide. But frightened people dare dreadful things. Violence erupts on the Rindler.
Building up from ideas of human intelligence in disembodied storage or artificial bodies, Egan finally takes his lead characters on a mind-boggling joyride through novo-vacuum, mapping them into a space where a tense eight-hour flight from deadly predators covers just one millimetre. There's a lot of room in there.
Schild's Ladder makes easy reading out of terrifying physics, generating a real sense of wonder even as your jaw drops at the immensity of its implications. --David Langford
Greg Egan moves into Stephen Baxter territory with a wide screen, far future SF epic.
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- PublisherGollancz
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0575070684
- ISBN 13 9780575070684
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages256
- Rating
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Schild's Ladder
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Schild's Ladder
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Book Description Hardback: 9½" x 6¼". Condition: Near Fine: Small signs of wear. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Cover Art: blacksheep (illustrator). 1st Edition. © 2001: A stand-alone novel by Greg Egan. 1st edition, 1st printing. Light tanning to text block:- Synopsis: For twenty thousand years, every observable phenomenon in the universe has been successfully explained by the Sarumpaet Rules. Now Cass has stumbled on a set of quantum graphs that might comprise the fundamental particles of an entirely different kind of physics, and she has travelled three hundred and seventy light-years to Mimosa Station, a remote experimental facility, in the hope of bringing this tantalising alternative to life. The 'novo-vacuum' is predicted to begin decaying the instant it's created, but even a short-lived, microscopic speck could shed light on the origins of the universe. Cass's experiment turns out to be wildly successful; the novo-vacuum is more stable than the ordinary vacuum around it, and a region in which the new physics holds sway proceeds to expand out from Mimosa at half the speed of light. Six hundred years later, more than two thousand inhabited systems have been lost to the novo-vacuum. On board the Rindler, people have come from throughout inhabited space to study the phenomenon. Most are Preservationists, hunting for a way to turn back the tide, but a few belong to another faction, the Yielders, who believe that the challenge od adapting to survive on the far side of the border would reinvigorate a civilisation that has grown stale and insular. Tchicaya has come to the Rindler as a Yielder, but when Mariama, a childhood friend who inspired him to abandon his own home world and traditions for a life of travel, arrives soon after, he is shocked to discover that she wants to destroy the novo-vacuum. As a theoretical breakthrough reveals the true richness of the world behind the border, tensions between the opposing factions grow. Then a splinter group responds with violent, unilateral action, and Tchicaya and Mariama are forced into an uneasy alliance, travelling together through the border, balancing old and new loyalties against the fate of two incomparably different universes:- Review(s): "One of the genre's great ideas men" - The Times / "It is one of Greg Egan's great skills that he makes the passion of science appear understandable, even inevitable, to non-scientists" - Foundation / "One of the finest and most interesting writers" - The Alien Has Landed / "Fiercely original and a clever craftsman. One of the genre's most consistently brilliant ideas men" - Infinity Plus / "Achieves what the fiction of ideas should always aspire to" - Modern Review / "Greg Egan is the 21st century's most important sf writer. 'Schild's Ladder' is an epic adventure founded on the true science of the future. This is a book none could have written before, and only Egan could write now. Read Egan today, because it's what everybody else will be reading tomorrow. A tale full of wonder, discovery, life and hope" - Stephen Baxter:- (original cost £16.99). Seller Inventory # 20.051.00155
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Schild's Ladder This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780575070684
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780575070684
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