Twenty thousand years into the future, an experiment in quantum physics has had a catastrophic result, creating an enormous, rapidly expanding vacu...
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reviews
Sep 27, 2010
Christopher
rated it: 
I really, really wanted to like Egan's Schild's Ladder, because - wow - now THAT's hard SF! This book is so physics-crunchy that it'll scrape your gums raw. So I slogged through the physics (not a quick read), listened to the characters argue physics (because you can't really care about any of them), and finished without really feeling it is a better book than some of the others. It's certainly full of fascinating science and SFnal issues, such as humanity having moved beyond sexual dimorphism;
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May 30, 2010
Supposedly "the hardest science fiction ever written," I'll freely admit that I'm reading this mainly to sit around afterwards and congratulate myself on how fucking smart I am, and because I've spent all afternoon rereading the papers of mad German computer scientist/physicist Jürgen Schmidhuber and some Freeman Dyson and am feeling the old digital physics monkey on my back (I still think I might one day reinvest myself in said field, once I've set supercomputer design on its head). W
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Dec 10, 2009
Flying_Monkey
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One of the great pleasures of being a reader is in the anticipation of a new book. The disappointment of expectations is perhaps the greatest pain. Greg Egan has always been one of those writers whose new work excites intense anticipation. However recently I have been feeling the pain of disappointment more and more often.
Schild's Ladder has all the ingredients of an Egan classic: speculations on quantum physics, universe-spanning disaster, and characters to whom race, age, size and More...
Schild's Ladder has all the ingredients of an Egan classic: speculations on quantum physics, universe-spanning disaster, and characters to whom race, age, size and More...
Mar 20, 2009
Noah
rated it: 
This was by far Greg Egan's most cohesive and coherent novel that I've read so far. I will issue a warning: Quite a few chunks of this book read as lectures on quantum mechanics and quantum loop gravity. It's all interesting, and is coherent in the abstract if you're paying close attention, but it is dense as hell. Certainly Greg Egan is not an author for everyone.
His characters are still pretty lifeless. Some of the parts that are supposed to be quasi-romantic come off as cold More...
His characters are still pretty lifeless. Some of the parts that are supposed to be quasi-romantic come off as cold More...
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Nov 16, 2009
Jason
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Post-humans living in a mostly barren universe unleash a parallel universe of sorts in an experiment involving Quantum Graph Theory, something that apparently brings quantum mechanics and general relativity together. This weird otherworld horizon is expanding at half the speed of light, engulfing systems and necessitating evacuations, and trans-humanity is divided into two factions over what to do about it: those who want to figure out how to stop it and those who want to learn to adapt. Then it
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Mar 13, 2011
Egan's best to date: This is an excellent book. Egan manages to sustain a gripping and surprising plot without a single identifiable villain; instead we have sympathetic characters with opposing views on how to deal with the threat of the novo-vacuum. Yes, there ARE characters - they're just different to the standard SF stand-ins. Egan's prose is as efficient and polished as ever, and there are some lovely images. The science is at times formidable - this particular full-time scientist struggled
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Aug 30, 2011
Jon
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The story starts almost perfect. Nicely constructed premise, with hints of intrigue and adventure. The only flaw is the main male character's bumbling cluelessness about pretty much everything, which extends throughout thousands of years the story takes place in. I for one am getting tired of weak minded and willed male protagonists in modern sci-fi.
The promise of the story's prelude gets kicked to the curb as the story fast-forwards to the main setting for the story. Suspending dis More...
The promise of the story's prelude gets kicked to the curb as the story fast-forwards to the main setting for the story. Suspending dis More...
May 04, 2011
Anthony
rated it: 
Schild's ladder is a fascinating piece of hard-science fiction. It depicts a foreign reality in the far off future, holding many strange ideals and activities as normal. The background is quite vividly detailed, and similar to what one might expect from traveling to the real future. That being said, the odd concepts that are illustrated briefly in the book might be a turn-off for some. Additionally, the work is filled with mathematics that, while not overly complex, is necessary for understandin
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Jul 10, 2008
Karen
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
May 27, 2011
Takenari
rated it:
I caught up with this book in 2010 and it was a revelation. I like Greg Egan and have read most of his books and stories. Bought this back in 2006 but was reluctant to give it a try since I'd read all his previous novels in Japanese translation and the physics was taxing even so. I now find this one of his most sustained efforts to date. In my mind this should become the next Avatar if it can be made into a movie. It has everything: aliens, romance, action, terrorists and mind-boggling new world
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Oct 23, 2011
pjreads ♫
rated it:
Brilliant ideas and brilliant writing.
"The balance was only approximate: according to the Sarumpaet rules, even an infinite network built from this motif would decay into ordinary vacuum in a matter of seconds. At the Planck scale, that was no small achievement; a tightrope walker who managed to circumnavigate the Earth a few billion times before toppling to the ground might be described as having similarly imperfec balance."
Aug 18, 2009
Jimbo
rated it:
Egan's view of the future is both alien and quintessentially human. This book examines the vast and changing chasms between people, places and even universes. Schilds Ladder is a challenging read - those without some background in science will inevitably object to the physics and maths that have been woven into the story. But those who can appreciate it will enjoy the setting in a universe so very true to our own, even if by the end, they are rooting for it's destruction.
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Dec 27, 2011
Chris
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Greg Egan puts the 'science' back into science fiction with this superb piece of far-future imaginative storytelling.
'When I was ten years old, all I gave my sweetheart was a pair of projections that turned the group of rotations in four dimensions into principal bundles over the three-sphere. Ancient constructions, though I did rediscover them for myself.'
'How were they received?'
'She liked them so much, she extended them to larger spaces and gave me back th More...
'When I was ten years old, all I gave my sweetheart was a pair of projections that turned the group of rotations in four dimensions into principal bundles over the three-sphere. Ancient constructions, though I did rediscover them for myself.'
'How were they received?'
'She liked them so much, she extended them to larger spaces and gave me back th More...
Jul 30, 2011
John
rated it: 
Aborting reading this after 2 chapter. Sorry just to much heady mathematics, quantum physics, and pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and not enough plot for me. It's ok for a book to get "scientifically heavy" like say, Spin did...but I think they have to start out with a LOT more plot building than this one did to hold my interest and make it worth trudging through all the mind-bending stuff.
May 26, 2009
Jason ("jcreed")
rated it:
Some rather hard science fiction, but fortunately I already have heard of most of the math Egan is dipping into to spin his premise. It's a crazy ride, full of what are apparently his favorite post-singular themes of universe-creation, abiogenesis, and weirdness due to quantum effects, simulation, time-relativity. The only fault I find with it is the ending seemed kind of abrupt and unresolved.
Dec 09, 2011
Wendy
rated it:
I really liked this even though it was science fiction for quantum physicists! I didn't get much of it but the author gave just enough that I could pretend I was following along. I have never read a sf book like this. Very interesting. Probably around 10 "f" words, though. There was a tiny sex scene that was bizarre rather than offensive. The characters are not considered men or women so...
Feb 04, 2009
Donna
rated it:
What a disappointment. This book came highly recommended but was not able to live up to the hype. The basic plot was interesting. Regrettably, no one taught the author the difference between entertainment and a dry physics lecture. Almost a third of the book was wasted on explaining concepts that would have been better left to magic. If I wanted a lecture on physics, I'd dig out some dusty tome to read. The point of scifi is to entertain with a bit of education as a sidebar. When the education p
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Apr 11, 2010
Dennis
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This was a real cerebral read. Way way in the future where all sorts of things were possible. How about backing yourself up so that when you meet an untimely demise you can be recreated back to your old self. All sort of enhancements mean you can live pretty much forever. Sex is only for recreation and you have to grow the necessary bits when you are with the other person.
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Apr 21, 2011
Michael
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Delivers as a Hard SF novel, stretching the imagination without breaking relativity. I'd be lying if I said I understood everything in Schild's Ladder, or accepted everything it posits, particularly the notion that a copy of yourself counts as you, so long as your original is unconscious or dead.
These exotic concepts, millenial timelines and odd character's names require more attention and re-reading than I was always willing to afford. Even so, the expanse of mind-blowing possibi More...
These exotic concepts, millenial timelines and odd character's names require more attention and re-reading than I was always willing to afford. Even so, the expanse of mind-blowing possibi More...
Jul 27, 2011
Alex
rated it:
He is exceptionally bright and has some of the smartest ideas and concepts in sci-fi, but he can be almost unreadable, and his characters are made from cardboard.
Sep 17, 2011
Brent
rated it:
Liked a lot about it, but I just had trouble liking or connecting to the characters. Overall recommend reading it, particularly if you are an Egan fan.
Feb 16, 2011
Ben
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Another "good" one - another tour de force. Mindbending quantum thought experiments, love it!
Oct 03, 2010
Isk
rated it:
One-sentence summary:
Scientists actually create a bubble (/other universe) that is swallowing up this universe, and two factions arise: the Preservationists, who want to stop the bubble and save the world, and the Yielders, who think this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Decent first half (not as amazingly awesome as some of his other stuff), but became incomprehensible/boring after the attack on Rindler and Tchicaya and Mariam enter the vacuum.
Scientists actually create a bubble (/other universe) that is swallowing up this universe, and two factions arise: the Preservationists, who want to stop the bubble and save the world, and the Yielders, who think this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Decent first half (not as amazingly awesome as some of his other stuff), but became incomprehensible/boring after the attack on Rindler and Tchicaya and Mariam enter the vacuum.
Jan 25, 2011
Jason
rated it:
Egan didn't go quite so far down the rabbit hole of hard-science speculation as he usually does, especially at the end of the book. He stayed more focused on the characters and plot, which makes the story a bit more traditional, but also more approachable.
The book was pretty satisfying overall, but still more of a fascinating and detailed thought experiment than an amazing work of storytelling.
The book was pretty satisfying overall, but still more of a fascinating and detailed thought experiment than an amazing work of storytelling.
Sep 07, 2010
Andrei
rated it:
An extremely innovative universe which testifies that the limits of human imagination are a long way from being reached.
