Reviews and Comments

Rather bummed out that Egan's physics writeup on his site about this book is focused on how gravity works, which I was perfectly willing to take at face value; what I'm more interested in is the geography of the lands beyond the hoops. I think I have an okay idea in my head of how they work, but I'm not 100% sure. And like specifically, I want to know what's through the other side of the hoops at the nubs. More nubs? More void? Do you always have to go that far out to find a nub, or are there some that are a lot closer to Jierra? which I'm imagining as the center of this web of lands.

Also was rather annoyed by-- there's an implication that one character was a trans man, which fascinated me because I wasn't expecting it from a novel by Greg Egan; to be honest, his books are usually much stronger on the science than any sort of characterization. But before that could get followed up, or confirmed or denied, or even addressed by the character in question himself, both he and the character who made the implication die off-page. I'm not saying "don't kill queer characters", but for one thing, I'm also fascinated by the fact that Del was just like "oh, okay", her only concern being why he would obfuscate his past achievements; is transness widely accepted in this world, or is that a quirk of Del's? WE'LL NEVER KNOW.

The book also ends rather abruptly, when I wanted to see more of the aftermath, but I guess that just wasn't in the cards.