It is the end of the thirtieth century and humanity has divided into three. The fleshers, all that are left of the naturally evolving Homo sapiens, remain in the jungles and seas of Earth, living out their extended but mortal lives.
The rest of humankind have achieved apparent immortality, some as gleisner robots—human minds within machines—and the majority as polises—direct copies of human personalities living out their eternities in communities run by vast supercomputers. Amongst them is Yatima, an orphan, created by a random mutation of the Konishi polis base mind seed.
When an astrophysical disaster threatens to destroy Earth, Yatima sets out to discover a home where random acts of God will never again threaten their existence.
Neutron stars, gamma rays, curvature, multiverse, Euler, Planck, six-dimensional space and the gang are at it again! This time in a story which, despite not being exactly original, is challenging and captivating. Had to do a ton of googling while reading, physics is not my cup of tea, and have enjoyed myself. Cannot but recommend.
Content warning Spoilers
Themes revolve around the meaning of life for individuals, which resonated with me. The book is really heavy on the technobabble.
I've seen it described as "diamond-hard SciFi", it might even be an understatement. It starts off being confusingly abstract. After ~15% it gets more coherent, slightly more corporeal, though never entirely so.
Even through its abstract and detached universe, it revolves around modern issues of reality, subjectivity of perception and even memetic reality bubbles.
There's a lot to get from this, provided you can keep your mind clear enough to absorb the weirdness of it all.
