Rating: 
Summary: brilliant science fiction
Review: Twenty thousand years into the future, humanity has conquered everything in its path including death yet so far at least no other sentient life form has been found that did not originate from earth. Science rules, as knowledge is everything. However, a quantum physics experiment inadvertently creates a vacuum effect that forms a new universe with physical laws different from the current one. This universe is growing rapidly and eats anything in its path though nanotechnology has kept humanity safe by instant evacuation.However, what is to be done about the ever-expanding new universe that threatens life as we know it becomes the subject of great debate. The Preservationists want to destroy the new universe before it consumes humanity. The Yielders prefer to allow the growth of the new universe in order to study the phenomena. In that void, star crossed lovers Tchicaya and Mariama join separate and opposing hostile camps. SCHILD'S LADDER is brilliant science fiction as it entertains the reader with an action-packed plot yet requires the audience to think about the ethical clashes that make up the science community as part of the larger society. The story line is cleverly designed to run faster than the speed of light yet maintains a cerebral moral fiber to the plot. Characters are fully developed so that the audience understands for instance the split between Tchicaya and Mariama. Fans of science fiction will want to read Greg Egan's distant future intelligent thriller that leaves the audience hungering for more novels like this one while debating current scientific moral dilemmas confronting society today. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: So hard it will hurt when you knock your head against it
Review: Woosh. That was the sound of this book going right over my head.
I love hard sci-fi, don't get me wrong. I've read plenty of layman's books on quantum physics and consider myself reasonably well-informed on science in general. Still, large chunks of "Schild's Ladder" were basically gibberish to me, and the book was actually somewhat of a chore to get through. I haven't had that experience in a long time.
The basic plot of "Schild's Ladder" is certainly engaging: 20,000 years in the future, an experiment gone awry creates a new universe that is expanding inside our own at half the speed of light, gobbling up worlds and forcing evacuations of whole planets. The key outpost to study the phenomenon is occupied by two opposing factions: the Yielders, who want to study and even protect the new universe, and the Preservationists, who want to stop or destroy it. The main character arrives at the station as part of the former clique, only to discover his childhood love has thrown in her lot with the other side.
Sadly, neither person really gets fleshed out, and I was puzzled by the main character's emotional obsession with his former love. She never seemed like anything special to me. Interactions with other characters come off as flat. We are told at one point that violent crime has basically been unheard of for 19,000 years, yet a brutal act of sabotage is taken in stride by people for whom a more natural reaction would surely be sheer bafflement or shock-inducing horror. The characters like to make trite quips one instant and in the next display thin-skinned petulance.
The story drags through the middle of the book as the factions solidify their positions, the main character engages in some flashback reminiscing, and the technicalities of quantum weirdness are explored in mind-boggling detail. The last quarter of the book is actually pretty gripping as the researchers make progress in understanding the new universe. Egan does a commendable job of describing what is on the other side of the boundary, and I found his technical descriptions easier to follow as they focused more on technology and engineering rather than quantum theory. He also deserves kudos for employing the etaphor from which the book gets it title. Schild's Ladder is apparently an actual mathematical proof and it's an impressive feat to take that and turn it into a metaphor for human change.
I picked up this book because I like hard sci-fi and had heard good things about Egan. I can say pretty confidently that Egan writes harder than anyone I've read. I felt like I needed to have a graduate degree in physics to fully appreciate the book. This definitely isn't a light read for a general audience.
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