The book I just read turned out to be a couple of firsts for me
- first Ken MacLeod book I've read
- first post-Singularity book I've read (possibly)*
- first book I've read this year which I'm ready to pronounce my favorite of the year
This book follows one old and dedicated woman in her quest to resolve a deep and abiding threat. We get flashbacks of her youth, we get political and philosophical arguments, we get ironic social commentary, we get sf alien tech.
The book is called The Cassini Division and when I first saw it on a friend's shelf I was compelled to pick it up and look at the back cover and flyleaf text. Once I'd read that much of it, I was driven to borrow it and bump it to the top of my reading queue. If anything, it was even better than I was hoping.
So what's it about? This book is about anticipating what life after the Singularity might be like if only people selfish enough to sacrifice everything to attain it pass through that event. It's full of references to other sf, most overtly in the chapter titles. It's a nice character study and often the dialog had me chuckling aloud.
I like it. I think it's the best book I read this year.
Who else might like it
- people who think about the Singularity
- people who like Heinlein's narratives but not his politics
I would like especially to thank Brad who, on every occasion I have spoken to him for the past year said nothing but "KenMacLeodKenMacLeodKenMacLeodKenMacLeod" and Brent, who loaned me his copy to read.
*Depending upon whether you consider Wil McCarthy's post-Scarcity analogous to post-Singularity
UPDATE 2007/12/30: No it's not new
I may have given the impression simply by being so late to the party on this
book that it's a new book. It's not, it's been out for years, but I am a slow
reader and have a long to-read queue which prevents me noticing many good
books.
This book does meet my new reading criteria: it's good enough that if I had
died without reading it, I would have been sad about that (in theory, in
an alternate reality where sentiment persisted beyond incarnation or where
one could know of things beyond one's exposure).
