Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : Tor, 2006, c2005
Pages
378
Description
Karl Schroeder is one of the new stars of hard SF. His novels,Ventus andPermanence, have established him as a new force in the field. Now he extends his reach into Larry Niven territory, returning to the same distant future in whichVentus was set, but employing a broader canvas.Lady of Mazes is the story of Teven Coronal, a ringworld with a huge multiplicity of human civilizations. It's the story of what happens when the delicate balance of coexisting worlds is completely destroyed, when the fabric of reality itself is torn. Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who threaten the fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy,Lady of Mazes is the hard SF novel of the year.… (more)
Awards
Locus Award (Nominee — Science Fiction Novel — 2006)
Sunburst Award (Honourable Mention — 2006)
Locus Recommended Reading (2005)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
378 p.; 6.9 inches
ISBN
0765350785 / 9780765350787
Similar in this library
User reviews
LibraryThing member angharad_reads
Hoo-boy, did I enjoy this book. I'll be buying a copy. It's not cyberpunk, but it's all about implanted cyberpresence and constantly mediated reality. It was practically homework, for my current course in HCI, and my Information Behaviour classes more generally. I wrote several huge paragraphs
You guys, you guys, I read this cool science-fiction novel!
So I was feeling a little exhausted on Monday after staying up late and turning in lots of homework the night before, so I stayed offline the entire day and finished two library books. The second one turned out to be fascinatingly relevant to IB, so I figured I'd talk about the tech and ideas involved here.
ISBN: 0765312190,Lady of Mazes [no, I've only a slight idea about the title's meaning, sorry],
by Karl Schroeder
Disclaimer:
Hard-SF, so the macguffin is a technologically spawned philosophical idea, with perhaps a very slight resonance with space opera. (Despite being hard-SF, and perhaps arguably epic in spatial scope (though not in time, it all takes place within maybe a six-month period, excluding flashbacks), I didn't hate this book. It did not make me impatient, like many others. Probably because I loved the transhumanist, cyborg, jacked-in tech.)
Technology:
Everyone wears cybernetic/computer implants and is online all the time (except in the case of catastrophic hardware failure or minority extremism). Take some time to get used to that sentence, because that's actually not the cool or creative bit about this novel. What you should be getting used to there: immersive 3-D thought controlled interface indistinguishable from reality, rewinding all your conversations when necessary as if with TiVo (digital video recorder), while an 'agent' sim of yourself keeps up with the real-time component of the conversation. Having several conversations in several places using those agents. Stepping out of a conversation at a party and leaving a sim-agent behind to continue it for you. Asking your personalized customizable search agents to go find you things online and bring them back. Turning on and off your 'society' (buddy-list) if you are bored or want to be alone. Oh, and everyone has nanotech 'angel'shields so you can't accidentally hurt yourself much. Also none of this is cyberpunk, because the online things are portrayed as *normal*. Also of course, because the concept of offline doesn't really exist anymore, to contrast.
Excerpt:
Livia didn't want to talk to any of the real inhabitants of the estate right now, so she excluded them from her sensorium.
...
Conversations bubbled around her as she scowled at the mirror. Some dialogues were happening now in the manor, but most were the peers, laughing and chattering in diverse places back home. Some voices were real people's; some were imitations performed by AIs. They were filtered for relevance by Livia's agents so that she only got the gist of what was happening today...
The actually cool philosophical bit:
The protagonist comes from a world where separate countries / utopian-societies / philosophies co-exist. None of them can see each other (due to, if you like, cyber-filters), though for practical reasons their territories rarely overlap in space. They've got it set up, though, so that nobody can harmfully visit another society. Think of the Star Trek Prime Directive, here. Each one is a state of mind, so the way to visit from one to another is to shift perceptions, thoughts, and values. Once you've done that, you're "there". The girl from the city has to start consciously noticing all the trees, and hearing the animals in the forest, and eventually she's walking into the pseudo"Indian" village. Lots of people stay in their birth societies because they find that switch too difficult.
Later in the novel, she visits a more libertarian world, where they don't have these cyber-filters between societies. Indeed, they have no consensus society views of the world at all. Every single person *there* has their very own cyberview of the world and can swap to their friends' views at a moment's whim.
Excerpt:
Livia reached out with her senses and will, determined not to notice anything of Westerhaven: no buildings, no contrails. Her change of attitude and attention was noted by her neural implants and the mechology known as the *tech-locks*; where there had been impenetrable underbrush, a pathway appeared leading into the woods.
The big philosophical question:
Whether it's better to have that anarchic freedom to modify one's own environment, or whether it's better to keep some form on things to spur creativity.
Show More
about it, which follow:You guys, you guys, I read this cool science-fiction novel!
So I was feeling a little exhausted on Monday after staying up late and turning in lots of homework the night before, so I stayed offline the entire day and finished two library books. The second one turned out to be fascinatingly relevant to IB, so I figured I'd talk about the tech and ideas involved here.
ISBN: 0765312190,Lady of Mazes [no, I've only a slight idea about the title's meaning, sorry],
by Karl Schroeder
Disclaimer:
Hard-SF, so the macguffin is a technologically spawned philosophical idea, with perhaps a very slight resonance with space opera. (Despite being hard-SF, and perhaps arguably epic in spatial scope (though not in time, it all takes place within maybe a six-month period, excluding flashbacks), I didn't hate this book. It did not make me impatient, like many others. Probably because I loved the transhumanist, cyborg, jacked-in tech.)
Technology:
Everyone wears cybernetic/computer implants and is online all the time (except in the case of catastrophic hardware failure or minority extremism). Take some time to get used to that sentence, because that's actually not the cool or creative bit about this novel. What you should be getting used to there: immersive 3-D thought controlled interface indistinguishable from reality, rewinding all your conversations when necessary as if with TiVo (digital video recorder), while an 'agent' sim of yourself keeps up with the real-time component of the conversation. Having several conversations in several places using those agents. Stepping out of a conversation at a party and leaving a sim-agent behind to continue it for you. Asking your personalized customizable search agents to go find you things online and bring them back. Turning on and off your 'society' (buddy-list) if you are bored or want to be alone. Oh, and everyone has nanotech 'angel'shields so you can't accidentally hurt yourself much. Also none of this is cyberpunk, because the online things are portrayed as *normal*. Also of course, because the concept of offline doesn't really exist anymore, to contrast.
Excerpt:
Livia didn't want to talk to any of the real inhabitants of the estate right now, so she excluded them from her sensorium.
...
Conversations bubbled around her as she scowled at the mirror. Some dialogues were happening now in the manor, but most were the peers, laughing and chattering in diverse places back home. Some voices were real people's; some were imitations performed by AIs. They were filtered for relevance by Livia's agents so that she only got the gist of what was happening today...
The actually cool philosophical bit:
The protagonist comes from a world where separate countries / utopian-societies / philosophies co-exist. None of them can see each other (due to, if you like, cyber-filters), though for practical reasons their territories rarely overlap in space. They've got it set up, though, so that nobody can harmfully visit another society. Think of the Star Trek Prime Directive, here. Each one is a state of mind, so the way to visit from one to another is to shift perceptions, thoughts, and values. Once you've done that, you're "there". The girl from the city has to start consciously noticing all the trees, and hearing the animals in the forest, and eventually she's walking into the pseudo"Indian" village. Lots of people stay in their birth societies because they find that switch too difficult.
Later in the novel, she visits a more libertarian world, where they don't have these cyber-filters between societies. Indeed, they have no consensus society views of the world at all. Every single person *there* has their very own cyberview of the world and can swap to their friends' views at a moment's whim.
Excerpt:
Livia reached out with her senses and will, determined not to notice anything of Westerhaven: no buildings, no contrails. Her change of attitude and attention was noted by her neural implants and the mechology known as the *tech-locks*; where there had been impenetrable underbrush, a pathway appeared leading into the woods.
The big philosophical question:
Whether it's better to have that anarchic freedom to modify one's own environment, or whether it's better to keep some form on things to spur creativity.
Show Less
LibraryThing member phappyman
Hardcore science fiction. I love it. I most especially like the idea of the "algorithm book as an organization."
LibraryThing member BobNolin
Schroeder is my new favorite sf author. This was MUCH better than Ventus, which was pretty good. Seldom have I seen a sf book that was so well plotted. All the mysteries are neatly explained by the end, in a very satisfying way. The only thing he could’ve improved was the wimpy title. I ran right
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out—er, logged right on to the library site—and reserved his new one, Sun of Suns. Show Less
LibraryThing member freddlerabbit
For the first third of the book, I was intrigued - Schroeder does well with not over-explaining his universes, leaving the reader to puzzle out the assumptions that his characters would take for granted, but the reader would find strange. This is a hard thing to do effectively, and yet he manages
However, as I continued to read, I became frustrated by a basic lack of understanding of what was going on. The novel is about people who are able to exist in various virtual realities, best I can tell, which intersect with one another in different ways and to different degrees. They are aware of the artificiality of their environments, and indeed, consciously manipulate them - but sometimes this awareness recedes and they simply exist and focus on the details of their lives, rather than their VR. Possibly due to some failing of mental power of my own, or lack of imagination, there was some fundamental level at which I just couldn't assign meaning to the terms he used, and so I spent the latter half of the book interested to see what happened but frustrated and confused.
The story is paced reasonably well, and the characters, though not very deep, are engaging.
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it.However, as I continued to read, I became frustrated by a basic lack of understanding of what was going on. The novel is about people who are able to exist in various virtual realities, best I can tell, which intersect with one another in different ways and to different degrees. They are aware of the artificiality of their environments, and indeed, consciously manipulate them - but sometimes this awareness recedes and they simply exist and focus on the details of their lives, rather than their VR. Possibly due to some failing of mental power of my own, or lack of imagination, there was some fundamental level at which I just couldn't assign meaning to the terms he used, and so I spent the latter half of the book interested to see what happened but frustrated and confused.
The story is paced reasonably well, and the characters, though not very deep, are engaging.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JenneB
Well, Schroeder finally breaks the streak. This could have been really cool, with its ideas about virtual realities and government-through-emergent-behavior.
Unfortunately, the 3 main characters were all dull and whiny.
Unfortunately, the 3 main characters were all dull and whiny.
LibraryThing member ben_a
From Jo Walton's list of books that made her excited about scifi. I suppose I see why LoM ended on her list -- the exploration of the end stage of augmented reality/VR is good. For example, Schroeder has the wonderful concept of the 'cliff test'. You take people and change their subjective reality
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so it seems they are falling off a cliff. If you've been raised in customized VR, you assume it's an illusion. A normal human freaks out and has an adrenaline response. LoM envisages a society where, essentially, everyone would fail the cliff test. But despite much, much ingeniousness of similar quality, the basic story elements and characterization didn't grab me. As it became clear that it was trending towards a post-human deity vs. post-human deity slugfest I lost interest. Show Less
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
Schroeder is a fairly recent discovery for me. (Why is it that I tend to love Canadian SF authors? Do I have some sort of deep-seated genetic affinity?) I haven't read everything by him yet, but I've liked everything I've read so far. 'Lady of Mazes; is admittedly not my favorite selection by him
It took a while for me to get into it. The multi-layered virtual reality these characters live in is challenging to understand - and the reader gets dumped right in.However, once the spray from the splashdown settles, the plot picks up - and there are plenty of plots. Unravelling the various motivations and mysteries, as this virtual world unravels, is a lot of fun.
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so far, but I still quite liked it. It reminded me of Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder books - but better.It took a while for me to get into it. The multi-layered virtual reality these characters live in is challenging to understand - and the reader gets dumped right in.However, once the spray from the splashdown settles, the plot picks up - and there are plenty of plots. Unravelling the various motivations and mysteries, as this virtual world unravels, is a lot of fun.
Show Less
LibraryThing member morgan.goose
good book. great ideas, execution got a little muddy halfway through