Status
Available
Call number
Description
"In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child, Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger--and the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved! Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travelers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster."--Dust jacket flap.… (more)
Pages
512
DDC/MDS
| 823.914 |
Language
Awards
Locus Recommended Reading (2011)
Series
Library's review
Review after rereading:
This book can't decide whether it wants to be a primer in the physics of the orthogonal universe, or a novel. I'd rather have a novel.
This book can't decide whether it wants to be a primer in the physics of the orthogonal universe, or a novel. I'd rather have a novel.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AlanPoulter
This is a really hard book to review. First, I must be honest and reveal that parts of it passed me by. With science fiction there should be challenging scientific ideas that play a big part in the plot. Usually I cope fine but this time I had problems.
Second, not withstanding what I have just
A quick flip through the pages of this novel will reveal some 'very non-novelish' diagrams etc.In the universe depicted in this novel, the laws of science are not our laws. The intelligent race depicted are not like us in biology, but do share our desire to be more than animals and learn to understand how reality works. So this is 'real' science fiction, where everything needs to be questioned as it is set in a fictional 'real' alternate universe with different laws.
Along with a different universe, the aliens are truly alien, six limbed shapeshifters, with eyes front and back, that emit light. They can 'write' characters on their skin.They reproduce by the mother being divided into four - two twin pairs, each usually forming a new reproducing couple, though there are the occasional 'solos', women that avoid their twin and take hollin, a drug that suppresses the splitting process. Men look after the children.
The main character in the novel is Yalda who is a solo. While her outcast status causes problems for her, her raw intellectual desire for knowledge sees her discovering the local physics step by step via a striing of ingenious experiments, and she does not stop until she has defined the first comprehensive set of physical laws for her universe.
With that done, what next attracts her attention is the threat to her civilization from 'hurtlers', giant asteroids. This novel is about her 'solution' to the hurtlers, which is audacious in the extreme since the level of technology available is medieval. The title of this novel gives a strong clue here...
Finally, strangely for such a dry,'theoretical' novel, the plight of these aliens is touching. And this is another surprise from such an apparently dry novel, in that it manages to engage the reader on an emotional level, as well as an intellectual one.
Second, not withstanding what I have just
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written, I really enjoyed this novel. Like no other novel I can think of, this novel really is 'science fiction', that is fiction about science, which works in ways that follow laws that can be proven by experiment. So why did this novel cause me difficulties?A quick flip through the pages of this novel will reveal some 'very non-novelish' diagrams etc.In the universe depicted in this novel, the laws of science are not our laws. The intelligent race depicted are not like us in biology, but do share our desire to be more than animals and learn to understand how reality works. So this is 'real' science fiction, where everything needs to be questioned as it is set in a fictional 'real' alternate universe with different laws.
Along with a different universe, the aliens are truly alien, six limbed shapeshifters, with eyes front and back, that emit light. They can 'write' characters on their skin.They reproduce by the mother being divided into four - two twin pairs, each usually forming a new reproducing couple, though there are the occasional 'solos', women that avoid their twin and take hollin, a drug that suppresses the splitting process. Men look after the children.
The main character in the novel is Yalda who is a solo. While her outcast status causes problems for her, her raw intellectual desire for knowledge sees her discovering the local physics step by step via a striing of ingenious experiments, and she does not stop until she has defined the first comprehensive set of physical laws for her universe.
With that done, what next attracts her attention is the threat to her civilization from 'hurtlers', giant asteroids. This novel is about her 'solution' to the hurtlers, which is audacious in the extreme since the level of technology available is medieval. The title of this novel gives a strong clue here...
Finally, strangely for such a dry,'theoretical' novel, the plight of these aliens is touching. And this is another surprise from such an apparently dry novel, in that it manages to engage the reader on an emotional level, as well as an intellectual one.
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LibraryThing member susanms
I find Egan's books hard work, but rewarding. I like so many features of the world he describes - particularly aspects that are diametrically opposite things in our own world or just something many people would like. These include the people's ability to change their body shape at will, the
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reversal of the roles of light and heat, etc. The build-up until you finally understand how children are born is great, although also confronting. Show Less
LibraryThing member CurrerBell
This isn't a novel, it's a physics textbook! The concept of the novel's aliens is fascinating, with females reproducing by self-dividing so that for the female, childbirth = death. It's the males who raise the children and thus control the entire society, which really makes for some interesting
I gave up on this book (which is pretty unusual for me) about a third of the way through.
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observations of a feminist nature. The problem is, there's constant distractions from both the plot and the characters by the complex astrophysics that Egan throws in, accompanied by diagrams. I don't at all object to "difficult" science, but I'll read it in nonfiction format. It just doesn't have a place in a novel.I gave up on this book (which is pretty unusual for me) about a third of the way through.
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LibraryThing member SChant
Too much maths, to many diagrams, not enough story. I gave up.
LibraryThing member gregandlarry
Good story and lots of interesting concepts. However there was too much theory that I was not prepared to take the time to get my head around. The characters and the plot kept me interested.
LibraryThing member KateSherrod
Long form review on my blog (see my author page). In short: OMG, this book hurt and maybe broke my brain with the physics, but the story and the species kept me fascinated. I want to bone up pretty seriously and read this again, someday. Best book I've read this year so far!
LibraryThing member lcl999
Greg Egan has created an alternative universe with the physics of light, speed, and distance quite different from ours. Very ingenious and carefully documented with diagrams and equations. As a student of contemporary physics I really had trouble suspending disbelief so I might have given it two
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stars, but it really is a tour de force. Show Less
LibraryThing member fpagan
Light-emitting plants. Shape-shifting "people". Alien family structures. Reproduction via 4-way fission of the females. Alien chemistry and laws of physics. Alien technology with much "clockwork" but no electricity. In this strange world in some alternate universe, female protagonist Yalda
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discovers the correct structure ("rotational physics") of her universe's spacetime and gets involved in a project aiming to save her world from a strange asteroidal-bombardment threat. The project mounts a multi-generational space voyage with a temporal direction that's "orthogonal" (the name of the fiction trilogy of which this book is the first volume) to the normal time dimension. If all his alternate science hangs together as consistently as it seems to do (buttressed by numerous diagrams!), author Egan has performed an incredibly inventive act of creation. Hard SF at its best. Show Less
Publication
Gollancz (2011)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2011-06-21
Physical description
512 p.
ISBN
0575095113 / 9780575095113