Books where a giant membrane surrounds the earth hiding the stars & leads to space/time freakiness

[jack]

Spin

An interesting one-off; read once. It's hard to discuss many of the ideas without spoiling it, but as mentioned, a giant membrane surrounds the earth; this is intensively studied and then exploited. The characters are not classic but are interesting.

Greg Egan: Quarantine

Q. Why did I read it?
A. Greg Egan!

Q. Where acquired?
A. Second hand via amazon. It's strange that a book about quantum mechanics is old :)

Q. Basic premise?
A. The observer effect in quantum mechanics is due to a specific and manipulatable neurological configuration. (Unsurprisingly this leads to interesting and mind-blowing philosophical consequences.)

Q. Characters (and plot)?
A. Some. Not especially unique, but interesting to read about; on a par with the short stories or permutation city, rather than the rather interchangeable non-characters of diaspora.

Q. Also?
A. An Egan that reminds me most of near-future Stross or Vinge, with nanotech and neurological implants in normal street scenes.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure in what sense you mean "one-off"; Spin is followed by Axis, and though Robert Charles Wilson's next book due is unrelated - it's the book he described at this year's Farthing party as "Julian the Apostate on a gunboat" - there will fairly soon be a further volume, Vortex, which I believe is to be the concluding one.

(The appropriate publishing-industry people were for some reason disinclined to accept the suggestion that these books be marketed as "the Spin cycle".)

If you are doing a thematic read of "books where the outside world disappears", you may also want to look up Robert Reed's Beyond the Veil of Stars and Beneath the Gated Sky, which are quite good, though to my mind Robert Reed is a natural novella-length writer whose novels are always slightly odd on pacing and these two definitely count.

(My theory is that all these books are likely inspired by their authors being blown away by "The Nine Billion Names of God" at some formative point in their youth; Bob Wilson said that was a fair comment.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

My theory is that all these books are likely inspired by their authors being blown away by "The Nine Billion Names of God"

:) That would make sense. I wasn't really (if you read it for the first time now, it's not very shocking, or at least I didn't find it so, even though I can see why it would be, and praise it as a story), so it was just coincidence I read both of these now. Although now, of course, you've gone and hooked my interest on them anyway :)

I'm not sure in what sense you mean "one-off";

I think typing faster than I think: it felt like a one-off, and it was a one-off for me, as it was interesting, but I didn't really want to come back to it, and I sort of subconsciously assumed it _would_ be written stand-alone, even though it wasn't. A quick check shows the second might be quite good, but I couldn't bring myself to believe it would be possible at the time: discovering the alien intelligence behind a mysterious occurrence is not something authors ever really _do_ seem to be able to successfully follow on from, so I hadn't considered if something might be an exception :)

The appropriate publishing-industry people were for some reason disinclined to accept the suggestion that these books be marketed as "the Spin cycle".

ROFL :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

It does seem amusingly precise that there might be a whole genre of "stars go out" books, with their own tropes, and own classics.

I suppose it's no more ridiculous than the "vampires are hawt" genre spawned (I assume) mainly by Anne Rice :)

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

I read Quarantine, ages ago (like 12 years ago at least). I really enjoyed the in-brain technology, and the quantum mechanics / philosophy. I've recently read a review saying the characters were forgettable, which seems true, as I can't remember any of them* :-)

*: Apart from the really evil [SPOILERCENSORED] at the end.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:)

I don't think the main character had many defining characteristics other than those described in the plot, which would be a litmus test for being a character; but on the other hand, those were interesting, I did care about him as I was reading, rather than seeing him solely as a mobile viewpoint :)