It causes riots and religions. It has people dancing in the streets and leaping off skyscrapers. And it's all because of the impenetrable gray shie...
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Oct 31, 2009
Jason
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The rest of the universe has somehow quarantined humanity with a Dyson-sphere-like bubble around the solar system, all because the human brain has the ability to collapse all the possibilities (*eigenstates*) in each quantum event, thereby reducing the potential and actual diversity of the cosmos. Egan takes this premise and asks, "OK, what if someone became consciously aware of this collapsing process and began choosing which eigenstate was made manifest?" What if each moment were a s
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Sep 10, 2011
Michael
rated it:
If you really like quantum mechanics and philosophizing on all of the strange reality that it entails, then you'll love this book. Otherwise, it's basically a mind f---. The ideas explored here aren't novel, but they are taken to such an extreme that it's hard to enjoy the book as a story instead of a thought experiment. And a challenging one at that - even with quite a bit of qm theory under my belt, I still ended up re-reading pages to make sure I kept everything straight. As a result, I o
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Apr 06, 2010
Glenn
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With Egan, you get your sci-fi hard and weird, just the way I like it. It's 2068 and the solar system has been quarantined inside a huge bubble for decades. Nick is an ex-cop private eye hired on a missing persons case. His anonymous client wants to find a profoundly retarded adult who was kidnapped from a care facility, the same one she escaped from twice previously. In the absence of a ransom demand, Nick imagines all kinds of reasons why this woman would be valuable and how she would be t
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Nov 01, 2011
Space
rated it:
This book taught me a lot about Quantum Mechanics, and inspired me to dive into the science itself and get a better idea of what he was talking about. Greg Egan is a scientist more than a writer, and thus his fiction has a lot of science in it. A whole lot. It almost reads like a science book itself, so the storytelling will take a bit of a hit here. He's not a bad writer, he just gets a little Crichtonism, in which he wants so badly to push his idea that he takes more time noting it out tha
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Sep 21, 2011
Jason
rated it:
4 Stars
I am giving the overall of this book 4 stars only because Egan is not afraid to write hard science fiction. This is my second Egan novel that I have read, Clockwork Rocket (a book that I loved) being the first. Greg Egan is not afraid to use fiction to explore real science, physics, quantum mechanics, and deep philosophy.
This book Quarantine, a first in a trilogy is focused around quantum mechanics, specifically around a measurement known as Schroedinger’s Cat. More...
I am giving the overall of this book 4 stars only because Egan is not afraid to write hard science fiction. This is my second Egan novel that I have read, Clockwork Rocket (a book that I loved) being the first. Greg Egan is not afraid to use fiction to explore real science, physics, quantum mechanics, and deep philosophy.
This book Quarantine, a first in a trilogy is focused around quantum mechanics, specifically around a measurement known as Schroedinger’s Cat. More...
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Jan 30, 2010
Jeff
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Feb 20, 2011
Joe
rated it:
This book is built on a lot of great ideas, and there are some nicely whimsical stylistic touches, like the way that the narrator parenthetically gives the manufacturer and cost of each brain modification that he mentions, as though it was the New Yorker shopping issue. This is a bit of a spoiler, since the book starts out seeming like a cyberpunk private eye story, but in the end, the book presents a novel take on Schrödinger's cat-style quantum observer issues.
Nov 13, 2011
wychwood
rated it:
I love how Greg Egan can write incredibly hard SF - I mean, most of his stories revolve around pure mathematics or quantum physics - without ever ignoring the consequences for people. I don't remember his stories very well between times (this was a re-read, but I couldn't have told you anything about it) but they're always worth the effort.
May 13, 2011
Toggedout
rated it:
There were some really interesting ideas in this books, specifically about the ability to utilize the wave properties of quantum particles to whittle away all possible outcomes, but it was a little heavy, a little redundant, and ultimately led to very little satisfaction at the end. It was well written, thoughtful, but just a little too...precocious.
Jul 28, 2009
Nick
rated it:
Read this in college. It's really quite a good mystery and primer on probability, wave functions, and Feinman's theory of sum-over histories. It also makes one think out-of-the box on what life in other places could be like, even though you never see an alien or anything. I'd like to see Ridley Scott direct the film.
Aug 06, 2011
Brilliant, even by Greg Egan's high standards. Schrodinger's cat on steroids, a fast-moving novel that fantastically combines a genuine human story with clever physical insight that gets to the heart of the paradox of quantum mechanics. Not for the faint-hearted, but definitely worth the effort.
Sep 06, 2010
David
rated it: 
This book starts with a nice idea, and at first seems like a good cyberpunk novel.
However, the story gets stuck quickly into metaphorical technobabble about quantum states and probabilities, and becomes very arid and uninteresting.
I didn't like this book, although I finished it anyway ;)
However, the story gets stuck quickly into metaphorical technobabble about quantum states and probabilities, and becomes very arid and uninteresting.
I didn't like this book, although I finished it anyway ;)
Jan 07, 2011
Luke
rated it:
A friend bought this as part of a "3 for 2" deal and didn't want to carry it back to Australia as he had too much luggage. Lucky me! A great mind f*ck of a book that I found difficult to believe had been written nearly 20 years ago, as much of the underlying theory seemed very current...
May 08, 2011
Owen
rated it:
It starts out as a futuristic tale that then heavily focuses on the nuances of quantum mechanics. Very interesting read, but near the end comes off more as fantasy then sci-fi.
Mar 30, 2009
Shelly
rated it:
A pretty good book that got a little thick into its exploration of quantum mechanics. Sometimes the science got in the way of the fiction. Otherwise, rather enjoyable.
Sep 04, 2011
Barry
rated it:
Loved it until the end, when it settled for a bit less in my view. Still, a gripping read, a gritty reality reminiscent to me of Mindstar Rising by Hamilton.
Dec 10, 2010
Sandyboy
rated it:
very well done but just a bit to chaotic for me. read it in a hospital ward and it served as a good distraction from me daughters heart surgery
Feb 02, 2011
Lauren
rated it:
The writing was a tad clunky (and I haven't read sci-fi in a while, so there's that...), but the story was quite compelling and well-done.
Nov 09, 2010
Anastasia
rated it:
It was ok. Idea-driven scifi, the idea itself interesting enough, but explained and overexplained to death, at the cost of plot development, much less any character development.
Mar 23, 2010
Alex
rated it:
pulpy but awesome
won't see portable gaming devices the same way after reading this
;)
won't see portable gaming devices the same way after reading this
;)
Apr 19, 2009
Michelle
rated it:
Though I only understood about half of this book, I really liked it. Especially the end part.
Jul 30, 2011
Steven
rated it:
Baffling at time, amazing at others. The final 1/3rd is simply awesome.
Jan 15, 2012
Mikael
rated it:
Greg Egan’s first full length novel already shows the author’s uncanny ability to write stories that baffle on all levels of storytelling. He presents us with a rather high-tech cosmological mystery and wraps it in beautiful philosophical speculation and keen, psychologically plausible character content.
“Quarantine” isn’t quite as completely ingenious and whole as most of Egan’s work, but it’s nevertheless a smart, compelling and ambitious speculation that has so much guts it almost More...
“Quarantine” isn’t quite as completely ingenious and whole as most of Egan’s work, but it’s nevertheless a smart, compelling and ambitious speculation that has so much guts it almost More...
Jan 28, 2010
Jerah
rated it:
Quantum physics sci-fi! What could be more fun! After I finished this book, I had a dream that I was trying to access a different quantum reality in which I was a skinnier version of myself with the help of a big, silver car-windshield sunshade thingie...
Jul 08, 2010
Chris
rated it:
i burned through this pretty fast (for me) and had a fun time reading it, but i felt kind of bad for enjoying it, given that it's basically a trashy spy novel with super trite notions of quantum physics. if he'd've just used words other than "quantum mechanics", "wave collapse", etc. i probably would have felt better about it.
