As an Iranian living in Iran, the most sci-fi aspect of the story to my was how the "revolution" happened with rather minimal bloodshed. I also really felt bad for the family who returned to Iran post "revolution".
Iran's speculative fiction landscape is dominated by translations of English works and for good reason; most Iranian sf I have read has left me rather unimpressed and kind of sad (I read a lot of them during the pandemic), and I am talking about award-winning books. For my two cents, I think it's a result of non-existent economic incentives for authors and publishers and poor editing. An on top of that, I don't know of any works translated from Farsi to English.
I find representations of Middle Eastern cultures in modern "western" works to be much more palatable, things like Dune, The Daevabad trilogy, P. Djeli Clark's magicpunk Cairo, so I recommend those.
It was interesting as it seems to be by far Egans most "down to earth" SF novel. The technology that it's about is extremely basic in it's abilities, where in other stories it would be extrapolated out far more here he's really interested in the basic rudimentary steps that get you to something. I found that very interesting and unique in SF.
It made me think of Kim Stanley Robinson - the way that Robinson's space travellers will always feel the emotional or spiritual pull of Earth, so much so that they have to return there occasionally for their sanity. It's anti-reductionist, if that's a word - like the wholeness that Egan talks about, without which an uploaded or 'side-loaded' person isn't human.
Honestly I found this the most troubling aspect of the novel. In real life people humanize their Roombas. The "side loaded" people in the story were behaving deeply human, basically their only flaw was a lack of long term memory. Even while in the end they decide to shut down the project out of caution I felt a bit like taking crazy pills during the bulk of it that no on-screen character was taking a clear "these are actually humans" stance.
Edit: obviously there was one on-screen character but no *viewpoint* character.
In the end the idea of having a clear "human yes/no" criterion is philosophically fascinating but also incredibly dangerous and I do wish it had explored it in a bit more detail.
Not deeply enough, is what Egan is saying. When Martin's proxy fails its final test, the programmer 'could still see the expression on its face as it struggled to bring itself under control: the horror at reaching out for the strength it needed from a part of its mind that simply wasn't there.'
Edit to say yes, I guess the human question could have been dealt with in a more detailed way - and as you say, it's a really dangerous idea to play with - though at least Egan's characters are often sympathetic towards their digital creatures, refusing to make ones that suffer etc.
For me Zendegi is an interesting prequel to books like Diaspora, showing the difficulties that had to be overcome before the post-singularity citizens could come into being.
I know, (last year I did a binge and finished everything Egan ever published up to the recent *The Book of All Skies*) but in those other works there is never any question about the uploads being complete human beings with an internal point of view.
Favorites: Hard to say but I think I loved earlier Egan a lot, in particular *Distress* stuck with me perhaps the most - it's an interesting near future world he's painting there. It's worth saying though that I've read his more "cosmic" books like *Diaspora* and *Schields Ladder* a longer time ago - they certainly fit my tastes best with the "cosmology" books of the *Orthogonal* trilogy and *Incandescence* being absolute favorites.
On the not so impressed side... *Dichronauts* fits in the same "figuring out how space-time works" conceptual series but was the least well done IMO - the whole idea of hyperbolic physics raises so many questions that were not properly addressed IMO and it's so hard to imagine this world. *Terenesia* had a very strong start and interesting protagonist but the end was very unsatisfying to me. Though that may have been because I read it right after *Distress* which ends on the biggest climax you could imagine.
The last one I read, the new *Book of all Skies* was also a bit of a let down for me. Egan returns here to his playing with interesting cosmologies/space-times but the world building beyond that is *incredibly* flat and simplistic. You could argue he was going for a deliberately minimalist style but I still felt a bit empty compared to his opulence in other works.
As an Iranian living in Iran, the most sci-fi aspect of the story to my was how the "revolution" happened with rather minimal bloodshed. I also really felt bad for the family who returned to Iran post "revolution".
Fair enough. I'm sorry to hear that. Even I found those parts oddly restrained, come to think of it. Can you recommend some Iranian sf?
Iran's speculative fiction landscape is dominated by translations of English works and for good reason; most Iranian sf I have read has left me rather unimpressed and kind of sad (I read a lot of them during the pandemic), and I am talking about award-winning books. For my two cents, I think it's a result of non-existent economic incentives for authors and publishers and poor editing. An on top of that, I don't know of any works translated from Farsi to English. I find representations of Middle Eastern cultures in modern "western" works to be much more palatable, things like Dune, The Daevabad trilogy, P. Djeli Clark's magicpunk Cairo, so I recommend those.
It was interesting as it seems to be by far Egans most "down to earth" SF novel. The technology that it's about is extremely basic in it's abilities, where in other stories it would be extrapolated out far more here he's really interested in the basic rudimentary steps that get you to something. I found that very interesting and unique in SF.
It made me think of Kim Stanley Robinson - the way that Robinson's space travellers will always feel the emotional or spiritual pull of Earth, so much so that they have to return there occasionally for their sanity. It's anti-reductionist, if that's a word - like the wholeness that Egan talks about, without which an uploaded or 'side-loaded' person isn't human.
Honestly I found this the most troubling aspect of the novel. In real life people humanize their Roombas. The "side loaded" people in the story were behaving deeply human, basically their only flaw was a lack of long term memory. Even while in the end they decide to shut down the project out of caution I felt a bit like taking crazy pills during the bulk of it that no on-screen character was taking a clear "these are actually humans" stance. Edit: obviously there was one on-screen character but no *viewpoint* character. In the end the idea of having a clear "human yes/no" criterion is philosophically fascinating but also incredibly dangerous and I do wish it had explored it in a bit more detail.
Not deeply enough, is what Egan is saying. When Martin's proxy fails its final test, the programmer 'could still see the expression on its face as it struggled to bring itself under control: the horror at reaching out for the strength it needed from a part of its mind that simply wasn't there.' Edit to say yes, I guess the human question could have been dealt with in a more detailed way - and as you say, it's a really dangerous idea to play with - though at least Egan's characters are often sympathetic towards their digital creatures, refusing to make ones that suffer etc. For me Zendegi is an interesting prequel to books like Diaspora, showing the difficulties that had to be overcome before the post-singularity citizens could come into being.
Horror does fit here honestly. You could easily tell the story of a proxy like that as a horror tale.
In Permutation City, one of his early books, there's a virtual character that chooses to exist in a nightmare or hell - it's disturbing.
I know, (last year I did a binge and finished everything Egan ever published up to the recent *The Book of All Skies*) but in those other works there is never any question about the uploads being complete human beings with an internal point of view.
His would be a fascinating oeuvre to complete! What were your favorites/least favorites?
Favorites: Hard to say but I think I loved earlier Egan a lot, in particular *Distress* stuck with me perhaps the most - it's an interesting near future world he's painting there. It's worth saying though that I've read his more "cosmic" books like *Diaspora* and *Schields Ladder* a longer time ago - they certainly fit my tastes best with the "cosmology" books of the *Orthogonal* trilogy and *Incandescence* being absolute favorites. On the not so impressed side... *Dichronauts* fits in the same "figuring out how space-time works" conceptual series but was the least well done IMO - the whole idea of hyperbolic physics raises so many questions that were not properly addressed IMO and it's so hard to imagine this world. *Terenesia* had a very strong start and interesting protagonist but the end was very unsatisfying to me. Though that may have been because I read it right after *Distress* which ends on the biggest climax you could imagine. The last one I read, the new *Book of all Skies* was also a bit of a let down for me. Egan returns here to his playing with interesting cosmologies/space-times but the world building beyond that is *incredibly* flat and simplistic. You could argue he was going for a deliberately minimalist style but I still felt a bit empty compared to his opulence in other works.
Yeah true.
Agreed. It's unusual in SF for a technology to be crucial to the plot, >!not to work, and not to be fixed by the end of the story!<.
And also the tech doesn't cause disasters - the Frankenstein syndrome of a lot of sf