5 ms·

Foundations by Greg Egan (1998)

79 points by Jach 12y ago

thisjepisje 12y ago
I'm reading Schild's Ladder atm, wherein the fictional Quantum Graph Theory plays a large role. This is the first paragraph: In the beginning was a graph, more like diamond than graphite. Every node in this graph was tetravalent: connected by four edges to four other nodes. By a count of edges, the shortest path from any node back to itself was a loop six edges long. Every node belonged to twenty-four such loops, as well as forty-eight loops eight edges long, and four hundred and eighty that were ten edges long. The edges had no length or shape, the nodes no position; the graph consisted only of the fact that some nodes were connected to others. This pattern of connections, repeated endlessly, was all there was.
timruffles 12y ago
If you've not read any of Greg Egan's books this is your lucky day - an incredible writer to discover! His books have an unusually high ideas/page ratio, and are very readable.
- ianmcgowan 12y ago
  For some definition of readable. Be prepared to have yours eyes glaze over at certain points, but it's well worth the struggle to push on through.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    I've had friends mention that they liked Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon", except for the lengthy digressions into mathematics. One day, I'll get mad at them, and get revenge by suggesting an Egan novel.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      That's funny: the only thing I usually like about Neal Stephenson books are the digressions into nonfictional material. Everything else is just a needless exercise in people being shitty to one-another and Stephenson re-announcing his belief in '90s-era "hacker" ideologies.
jcrites 12y ago
Diaspora by Greg Egan is one of the most amazing books I've ever read, in terms of the ideas it explores. A serious treatment of the future where humans' minds are scanned into machines: what senses do you have in a virtual world? How do you spend your time when you want for nothing? What do love and reproduction mean? Space exploration when you slow your subject day to a solar year. Wonderful, beautiful, and mind-bending. http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html It used to be hard to find, but these days it seems to be available [edit: at least digitally] (ebook, audio) from the retailers you'd expect. It's not a "change your outlook on life" kind of book, but as a science fiction exploration of humanity's distant "singularity" future, set in 2975, it was the best I've read. (I would appreciate references to any other books on those topics - I haven't found many.)
- elzr 12y ago
  I have to second this. It took me years to thoroughly grasp some of its parts (and I have a math background) but Diaspora is without a doubt my favorite book of fiction. The first chapter of the novel is particularly approachable & worthwhile. It's titled Orphanogenesis and is a beautiful, detailed (~30 page) account of the digital birth of a new AI consciousness, from embryo to newborn to gaining self-awareness. Next year several Greg Egan's books will be reprinted. Diaspora comes out January 6, 2015! http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-A-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805424/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414962402&sr=8-1&keywords=greg+egan+diaspora http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-A-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/15978054... * * * If you want a softer approach to Egan's fiction, check out his short stories. Reasons to be Cheerful is my favorite one as well as Egan's. It's part of the Luminous collection, available as a $3 kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414962845&sr=8-1&keywords=luminous+egan http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW...
- cscharenberg 12y ago
  Same here. It profoundly widened my ideas on the universe and how to deal conceptually with its immensity in time and space. It's a beautiful story. His other books have been so-so, but his short stories are the hardest science fiction around. Nobody else has explored ideas of quantum mechanics intersecting with biology and humanity like he has. I think "Axiomatic" is a good set of them.
ggreer 12y ago
Disclaimer: I've read and enjoyed most of his books and short stories, but Egan's not for everyone. He favors ideas and world-building over characters and storytelling. I most like Egan when he avoids math and goes to a dark, cynical place. His short story The Extra[1] is probably the best example. If you like The Extra, you'll probably enjoy Blindsight by Peter Watts[2]. Some of the late Ian M. Banks titles fit as well: Against a Dark Background and Matter are both grim, somewhat hard sci-fi. If you're a fan of Greg Egan, you'll likely enjoy Ted Chiang[3]. He doesn't write much, but he writes well. 1. http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra 2. http://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm 3. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/130698.Ted_Chiang http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/130698.Ted_Chiang
- zem 12y ago
  and if you do like egan for the worldbuilding, check out stephen baxter as well. 'vacuum diagrams' makes a good introduction.
  - diego898 12y ago
    thank you both for these suggestions! Ive been searching to try and find something like Egan. Ill definitely give these a read!
- JadeNB 12y ago
  My God, but "Story of Your Life" is a marvellous story. I'm not sure that it's the intended effect, but I read it at a very stressful time in my life, and it had a marvellously calming effect. Both "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (not science fiction at all) and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" were fine, but, for me, nothing touches the shock of reading that first story. (I think that perhaps the greatest recommendation that I can give for Chiang is to say that, for a long time, I remembered "The Infinite Assassin" as being his story.)
otikik 12y ago
Axiomatic is one of my favourite short sci-fi stories books.
whitten 12y ago
I liked Eternal Flame and Clockwork Rocket, they are an interesting exploration of the possibility that the Time is an actual spatial dimension orthogonal to the other three spatial ones.
diego898 12y ago
Permutation City was completely unlike anything I have ever read. I love Egan's works and couldn't recommend them any higher!
mercurialshark 12y ago
2/3 way through Incandescence (first GE book I've read). Not disappointed. Was on the hunt for Stephenson equivalent in brilliance of writing, but with slightly more hard science. Wow...

79 points by Jach 12y ago

I'm reading Schild's Ladder atm, wherein the fictional Quantum Graph Theory plays a large role. This is the first paragraph: In the beginning was a graph, more like diamond than graphite. Every node in this graph was tetravalent: connected by four edges to four other nodes. By a count of edges, the shortest path from any node back to itself was a loop six edges long. Every node belonged to twenty-four such loops, as well as forty-eight loops eight edges long, and four hundred and eighty that were ten edges long. The edges had no length or shape, the nodes no position; the graph consisted only of the fact that some nodes were connected to others. This pattern of connections, repeated endlessly, was all there was.

timruffles 12y ago

If you've not read any of Greg Egan's books this is your lucky day - an incredible writer to discover! His books have an unusually high ideas/page ratio, and are very readable.

ianmcgowan 12y ago
For some definition of readable. Be prepared to have yours eyes glaze over at certain points, but it's well worth the struggle to push on through.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  I've had friends mention that they liked Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon", except for the lengthy digressions into mathematics. One day, I'll get mad at them, and get revenge by suggesting an Egan novel.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    That's funny: the only thing I usually like about Neal Stephenson books are the digressions into nonfictional material. Everything else is just a needless exercise in people being shitty to one-another and Stephenson re-announcing his belief in '90s-era "hacker" ideologies.

jcrites 12y ago

Diaspora by Greg Egan is one of the most amazing books I've ever read, in terms of the ideas it explores. A serious treatment of the future where humans' minds are scanned into machines: what senses do you have in a virtual world? How do you spend your time when you want for nothing? What do love and reproduction mean? Space exploration when you slow your subject day to a solar year. Wonderful, beautiful, and mind-bending. http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html It used to be hard to find, but these days it seems to be available [edit: at least digitally] (ebook, audio) from the retailers you'd expect. It's not a "change your outlook on life" kind of book, but as a science fiction exploration of humanity's distant "singularity" future, set in 2975, it was the best I've read. (I would appreciate references to any other books on those topics - I haven't found many.)

elzr 12y ago
I have to second this. It took me years to thoroughly grasp some of its parts (and I have a math background) but Diaspora is without a doubt my favorite book of fiction. The first chapter of the novel is particularly approachable & worthwhile. It's titled Orphanogenesis and is a beautiful, detailed (~30 page) account of the digital birth of a new AI consciousness, from embryo to newborn to gaining self-awareness. Next year several Greg Egan's books will be reprinted. Diaspora comes out January 6, 2015! http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-A-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805424/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414962402&sr=8-1&keywords=greg+egan+diaspora http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-A-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/15978054... * * * If you want a softer approach to Egan's fiction, check out his short stories. Reasons to be Cheerful is my favorite one as well as Egan's. It's part of the Luminous collection, available as a $3 kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414962845&sr=8-1&keywords=luminous+egan http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW...
cscharenberg 12y ago
Same here. It profoundly widened my ideas on the universe and how to deal conceptually with its immensity in time and space. It's a beautiful story. His other books have been so-so, but his short stories are the hardest science fiction around. Nobody else has explored ideas of quantum mechanics intersecting with biology and humanity like he has. I think "Axiomatic" is a good set of them.

ggreer 12y ago

Disclaimer: I've read and enjoyed most of his books and short stories, but Egan's not for everyone. He favors ideas and world-building over characters and storytelling. I most like Egan when he avoids math and goes to a dark, cynical place. His short story The Extra[1] is probably the best example. If you like The Extra, you'll probably enjoy Blindsight by Peter Watts[2]. Some of the late Ian M. Banks titles fit as well: Against a Dark Background and Matter are both grim, somewhat hard sci-fi. If you're a fan of Greg Egan, you'll likely enjoy Ted Chiang[3]. He doesn't write much, but he writes well. 1. http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra 2. http://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm 3. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/130698.Ted_Chiang http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/130698.Ted_Chiang

zem 12y ago
and if you do like egan for the worldbuilding, check out stephen baxter as well. 'vacuum diagrams' makes a good introduction.
- diego898 12y ago
  thank you both for these suggestions! Ive been searching to try and find something like Egan. Ill definitely give these a read!
JadeNB 12y ago
My God, but "Story of Your Life" is a marvellous story. I'm not sure that it's the intended effect, but I read it at a very stressful time in my life, and it had a marvellously calming effect. Both "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (not science fiction at all) and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" were fine, but, for me, nothing touches the shock of reading that first story. (I think that perhaps the greatest recommendation that I can give for Chiang is to say that, for a long time, I remembered "The Infinite Assassin" as being his story.)

otikik 12y ago

Axiomatic is one of my favourite short sci-fi stories books.

whitten 12y ago

I liked Eternal Flame and Clockwork Rocket, they are an interesting exploration of the possibility that the Time is an actual spatial dimension orthogonal to the other three spatial ones.

diego898 12y ago

Permutation City was completely unlike anything I have ever read. I love Egan's works and couldn't recommend them any higher!

mercurialshark 12y ago

2/3 way through Incandescence (first GE book I've read). Not disappointed. Was on the hunt for Stephenson equivalent in brilliance of writing, but with slightly more hard science. Wow...