ghostchaser reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
2nd time just not getting into this book
Published Jan. 5, 2011 by Gollancz.
The Clockwork Rocket
by Greg Egan
3 stars
(25 reviews)
In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy.
On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky.
As a child Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and that the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilisation has yet achieved.
Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travellers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert …
In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy.
On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky.
As a child Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and that the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilisation has yet achieved.
Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travellers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster.
inga-lovinde reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'GoodReads'
5 stars
Must read
Kibrika reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
I know that alternate history fiction exists, turns out so does alternate physics fiction. If you want a very feministic book with no humans involved (or even possible), this might be it. It does have a lot of lecturing in it, but it fits with the protagonist being a scientist and I enjoyed them even if I wasn't able to follow very closely. Lovely book of weirdness.
Tim Hutton reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I'm a fan of Greg Egan but this just fell flat for me. I just don't understand the physics that he is exploring.
erinmalone reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Boring, too esoteric and difficult to penetrate. Can't seem to want to get past the middle. I am a fast reader and read a lot but this book was so dense and the story so difficult to decipher - I still don't get what the point is - that I have to put it away - there are too many other books to spend my time on. Disappointed as it has good ratings from others but I just couldnt get into it.
Daniel Darabos reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I love this trilogy. It is based on a tiny little change (geometry of the universe) and exploring its consequences great and small. A daydream gone as far as a PhD thesis. By explaining physics in a fundamentally different universe it helps you understand the physics in our universe too.
The hard physics is lightened by exploring some social problems (that are also remotely derived from the different physics). This again is done as seriously as in a book exploring real social problems. When you read it, it is easy to forget how fictional all the injustice is.
wafonso reviewed The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
Review of 'The Clockwork Rocket' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Greg Egan has a great ability of building fictional universes that are utterly different from ours, but which feel as natural as our day-to-day life. This story is set in a universe in which the speed of light depends on its frequency, and in which time is a dimension that is much more "navigable" than in ours - in a sense, time and space are much more similar to each other in that universe. The beings involved have a biology that is about as different from ours as possible, while still going through much of what we go through, and we can follow as their scientists do the equivalent in their universe of discovering special and general relativity. There are lots and lots of diagrams throughout the book describing how physics works there (and also an appendix with more details, plus about 80,000 words of explanations in the author's website …
Greg Egan has a great ability of building fictional universes that are utterly different from ours, but which feel as natural as our day-to-day life. This story is set in a universe in which the speed of light depends on its frequency, and in which time is a dimension that is much more "navigable" than in ours - in a sense, time and space are much more similar to each other in that universe. The beings involved have a biology that is about as different from ours as possible, while still going through much of what we go through, and we can follow as their scientists do the equivalent in their universe of discovering special and general relativity. There are lots and lots of diagrams throughout the book describing how physics works there (and also an appendix with more details, plus about 80,000 words of explanations in the author's website - no, I haven't read everything yet)... and it's about as mind-bending as relativity, to be honest.
Oh, it also has a very interesting plot, as well. Being the first book of a trilogy, I really hope the next ones will show up soon.
