Click here to return to homepage
or 
Home > Categories > Books > Sci-Fi > Schilds Ladder review
Sick of adverts? Click here to join up for free and be rid of them.
Cass has stumbled on an entirely different kind of physics. And she has travelled to a remote experimental facility in the hope of bringing the tantalizing alternative to life.
The experiment is wildly successful: the novo-vacuum is more stable than the ordinary vacuum around it, and a region in which the new physics holds sway proceeds to expand at half the speed of light. Six hundred years later, and more than two thousand inhabited systems have been lost to the novo-vacuum.
People have come from throughout inhabited space: most are Preservationists, hunting for a way to stop the novo-vacuum before all inhabited space is consumed, but a few believe that the challenge of adapting to survive on the far side of the border would invigorate a civilisation that has grown stale and insular...
Product reviews...
Review by: kiwireviewer-00
Dated: 1st of September, 2003
There should be a label on the front, in big, bold lettering, it should say:
WARNING: This book contains large amounts of scary big ideas that tax the brain hard-core.
Unless you at least have a basic grasp of quantum physics in some form or another, and at least a good solid grasp of first year uni chemistry and physics, you'll find this book hard going in places.
Lots of places.
Being a somewhat diverse science buff, I found this book rather a pleasant wander in a hypothetical universe, millenia away from our tedious little lives of today. Humanity has become something so dissimilar from what we know of ourselves today that all of the high-brow physics treated so casually by the characters, could be right, for all we know.
However, I still found it a slog in places, so the re-readability factor is quite low. I would have to be in a very thoughtful mood to want to pick this one up again.
If you are able to put your mind in the world built by Egan, the characters are very well suited, true to nature and function. But it takes a while to build up that worldview, so you might get bogged down by the first 3 chapters.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book.
Guest comments...
There are currently no comments on file. Will you click here and be the first?
Random listing from 'Books'...
The End Of The World Is Here
Unlocking the secret of the Seven Ancient Wonders was only the beginning. The world is in mortal danger.
SIX FABLED STONES
For Jack West Junior and his loyal team of heroes, the challenge now is to set six legendary diamonds known as "The ... more...
All trademarks, images and copyrights on this site are owned by their respective companies.
This is a free public forum presenting user opinions on selected products, and as such the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinion of KIWIreviews.co.nz and are protected under New Zealand law by the "Honest Opinion" clause of the Defamation Act of 1992. KIWIreviews accepts no liability for statements made on this site, under the assumption that they are the true and honest opinions of the individual posters. In most cases, prices and dates stated are approximate and should be considered as only guidelines.
"What do you do when you discover an endangered animal that only eats endangered plants?"
anonymous
