Rating: 
Summary: Mind-expanding
Review: Far-future sci-fi usually falls into two categories: recognizable or far-fetched, neither of which is intrinsically good or bad. With DIASPORA, Greg Egan has expanded the limits of just how far far-future and far-fetched can go. In doing so, Mr. Egan has also expanded the limits of where science fiction can go. However, it's not an easy journey. DIASPORA requires either a good understanding of theoretical physics, the ability to see in higher dimensions, or a willingness to suspend disbelief. There are times when shifting from understanding to disbelief-suspension is difficult. At those times, it can be a slow read. Nevertheless, perseverance and determination are rewarded by some pretty cool imagery and concepts. One warning: This will render some sci-fi obsolete. After DIASPORA you will find yourself reading marginal action sci-fi with a "so what" attitude. It's hard to care about inter-galactic derring-do when infinite galaxies await.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely For Hard-Science Buffs
Review: Egan goes into some really esoteric topics--high-energy physics, cosmology, non-euclidean geometries, etc. The science can be pretty thick to wade through, and will definitely give the less-literate reader headaches (and will probably give most science buffs trouble); e.g., there is a section set in a 5+1 universe--five physical dimensions plus time--and Egan tries to describe what a world composed of hypersurfaces would look like. The characters are generally talking heads used to explicate the science, meaning they're neither human enough to create drama nor as alien as virtually immortal AIs should be.
Rating:
Summary: Vision dwarfs plot
Review: Egan's vision of humanity's 30th-century reality and it's discoveries is extremely creative, illuminating, and highly probable all at once. That alone was enough to keep me enthralled, but the book would have gotten my fifth star if its plot had been as captivating as its scientific vision. Unfortunately the story -- having built up exciting steam and anticipation -- falls flat at the anticlimactic end, and seemingly important characters come and go as ultimately inconsequential cameos (Inoshiro?). Still, highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Speculative Physics or Science Fiction?
Review: A reasonably persuasive and moderately technical exposition on the nature of consciousness. A recipe for the creation of sentient computers. Digressions into information physics, topology, and advanced cosmology for the semi-layperson. A subtle and easily missed solution to Fermi's paradox; a reasonably persuasive presentation of what lies beyond the "singularity" (here called the "introdus"). Sociologies and alien thought. The longest chase scene in all of fiction. All of the above, and a story with a few characters. Easy reading it is not! I have a reasonable layperson physics background, but most of the speculative physics in the book was well beyond me. I think I needed some diagrams, the book really deserves a web site that expresses some of themes, such as the celestial mechanics of 6 dimensional spacetime. Greg Egan is one smart guy, and he can spin a yarn as well. Just don't expect easy reading...
Rating:
Summary: What a way to find an author
Review: This was the first book of his I read, and was blown away both by the technical details and the plot! The first 50 pages are the most incredible non-visual description of dynamic programming and creativity I've seen in a long while...Pity the friend I borrowed this from...his was brand new before I got it...(Yes, I replaced it for him)...and I lost my copy in a recent move...so I got this to add to my permanent collection. One of the few novels I would take with me if I were moving to a deserted island.
Rating:
Summary: Permutation Galaxy
Review: Diaspora is Greg Egan's most far-out book to date, and that's saying a lot. The Orphan's awakening within the computer scape is painstakingly evoked, and in the process, the reader himself takes on the viewpoint of one who has never existed in the real world. The process of self-awareness is intuitive in humans because of our connection to our bodies and our biological instincts. For a piece of immortal and incorporeal software, selfhood must be deduced, and Egan rigorously and brilliantly describes how. When the polis-dwellers finally encounter the fleshers, they seem strange, primitive. I admire Egan's audacity to tackle a subject as vast in scope as this book, and his storytelling is necessarily more than a bit abstract. When your story spans millenia, I think it would be inappropriate to saddle it with a mere "character-driven" plot. But Egan's zeal in spinning one far-fetched scientific speculation after another is the book's strength and its weakness. Discourses on fermion-boson phase oscillations, lepton waves, macrosphere space-time curvature and wormhole knots take on increasing prominence as the story progresses, even as the reader becomes numb to it all and wishes for some payoff for having stuck it out for 300+ pages. It's a lot like you're reading a detective novel, and as the hero gets in a car to go somewhere, the writer starts explaining in minute detail the mechanics of the internal combustion engine, its developmental history, its foreseeable future applications-- on and on for pages and pages. Then later, when the detective finds a piece of paper with a clue written on it, the book suddenly goes into a long treatise on the neural processes for deciphering written language, the ongoing evolution of human vision and the latest theories on paper recycling. It's true, it gets bogged down that way in unnecessary and self-defeating textbook passages, even though arguably, they may be the whole point of the book. SPOILER: Having said that, I found the ending (when it finally came) to be the perfect way to conclude the Orphan's quest. As only one of countless divergent paths, this fate nonetheless encompasses all the rest. Born of mathematics, for him the epic striving for human self-knowledge was finally nothing but a diversion. (Bothersome question: if the Transmuters wanted those who followed them to recognize their passing and learn from them, why are their artifacts, or polises, so indecipherable in the end?)
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of Hard SF
Review: I'm writing from the perspective of someone who has read a lot of Egan's short stories. Make no mistake, Egan is probably the most significant science-fiction writer of the 1990s and he is far and away my favorite writer. However as other people have pointed out, the full-length novel isn't Egan's strongest medium. The ideas in Diaspora are far out and mindbending, but the need to constrain them within a traditional plot structure only takes away from their strength. In fact, I would have loved to see many of the ideas presented in this novel be elaborated in short stories, eg. the Dream Apes, why the crab-like aliens bio-engineered themselves into an evolutionary cul-de-sac, why are the gleisners so adamanant about keeping their robot bodies etc. Unfortunately, Egan seems to be spending less and less time writing short works nowadays and it's easy to see why: it simply isn't possible for writers to make a decent living writing short fiction. Also, I was surprised to find one reviewer write that Egan was weak on GR. Excuse me, but have you seen Egan's website at http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/. In general those who like the far out science in his stories should check out his site for further details and explanations. However, one point in which Egan does seem to be genuinely weak is analytical philosophy. In the beginning of the book, he makes a big deal out of Yatimah becoming self-aware, but most philosophers and cognitive scientists working on the question of consciousness would point out that simple self-awareness isn't all that mysterious. Also, I'm doubtful about his idea of "invariants of consciousness" as being the basis of personal identity. Despite this however, the blurb is right. If you call yourself a science-fiction fan, get this book.
Rating:
Summary: If you like your science fiction spoonfed, forget this book
Review: With Diaspora, Greg Egan continues his almost obsessive exploration of what we are, why we are, and if we get converted and downloaded into supercomputers as software, does it make any difference? This book does what all good literature should do: It makes you think. True, some of the more esoteric and technical passages will fly over the heads of all but the most informed readers, but the sheer scale and audacity of the concepts he explores are a reward in themselves. Part way through the book, you will forget that all the main characters you are reading about are actually sentient software. Brilliant. By a long, long way, the most interesting writer in the genre today.
Rating:
Summary: Mind bending
Review: This book is loaded with strange and wonderful concepts. I particularly liked the interactions with higher-dimensional beings.
Rating:
Summary: Creative and intelligent, but without climax or momentum
Review: Egan has an amazing gift for imagining a technological future, and in projecting what impact technological changes would have on the way humans live their lives. He is also quite skilled at describing unimaginable situations with conversational ease, of making the reader visualize the things he's describing. Diaspora is no exception to this rule. His books also tend to lack the final "umph" I would expect them to have. Again, Diaspora is no exception. The story is creative and approached with intelligence, but the novel becomes somewhat episodic and tangential, building subplots without resolving or tying them together. This book reads like a new-journalism account of serveral million years of human activity and technological evolution. Not that that's a bad thing. Very interesting and thought-provoking - but when I finished the book I felt like a gerbil running in a wheel. Hmmm....that sounds bad. But I'm glad I read this book. I really enjoyed reading this book; it took me to new places. And I plan to keep on reading Egan's books as long as he writes them.
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