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The Clockwork Rocket (2011)

by Greg Egan(Favorite Author)

3.49 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0575095113 (ISBN13: 9780575095113)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Orion/Gollancz

series

Orthogonal

review 1: There's alternate history novels, but this is an alternate physics novel. Not just a universe where things are wacky but a universe where things are mathematically correct based on it's slightly different configuration. He's going to teach you that math too. I feel like the physics in the book have replaced some of the real physics in my head and are going to cause me problems later ;) I would have really liked some pay off connecting it to our universe but perhaps it stands on it's own and doesn't need us. I enjoyed the alien characterizations enough that I'm definitely picking up the sequel.
review 2: I got a great deal of enjoyment out of reading this book - there were aliens with non-human physiology and cultural practices, and a well-thought-out alternate ... morephysics with enough similarity to real physics that I got insight into the real world from the discussions of the "rotational physics" in the book (just as an English-speaker can get insight into English grammar by studying a related but different language like German), but more than that there were characters I really liked. Yalda, the main character, is a combination of Einstein and Turing - brilliant, yet at risk due to her deviations from her society's norms; she is devoted to her friends and to the goal of seeking knowledge through science, and is a thoroughly decent person, who takes pains to protect other people even as her own death looms. It's nice to read about a group of people coming together on a project on the scale of the Manhattan Project which has the goal of producing technologies that will protect people, not kill them - in this book, Egan shows that he can tell a fascinating tale with very little violence, and no killing whatsoever. I look forward to the sequels (two more books in this series are planned) less

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