Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan | Hacker News Reader

Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan

gregegan.net

38 pointsBluestein16 comments

Long ago(I guess around 2006),I read this and was struck by the amazing ideas. I couldn't remember the author, though, just the title. Then I came across some of Greg Egan's other works a decade or so later and it felt similar, so I checked and sure enough, same author. Fantastic ideas, although his character development is a bit lacking in my opinion.

"A bit lacking" is putting it mildly. I love Egan, but he wraps his hard sci fi worldbuilding efforts in the minimum veneer of a story that can be written to tell you about the universe he's imagined.

Diaspora opens with a character literally developing itself, what more could you want?

Amazing book! Also Diaspora! Great mind expanding hard science fiction. Highly recommended!

Read it several years ago and loved it. Greg Egan is my go-to source for hard sci-fi.

Two further points:

  - Appears a very well documented, well researched (in that he does his homework) author
  - This might sound trite, but ... his per-book websites have this '90s internet feel to them, which is grand. (And, in a way, an indicator of quality ...)

Greg Egan is a mathematician and has a fascinating Twitter/X account.

That explains much.-

My all-time favorite science fiction novel.

That good, eh?

PS. Also looking into "Diaspora".-

You should read it! And Permutation City

Will read.-

  PS. "Permutation City" was how I first found out about Egan. Appears to be the "gateway drug" :)
  ... and a great tale.-

Interestingly, Egan pokes some holes in his own work here: https://gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/FAQ/FAQ.html (spoiler warning) and I think is all the more credible for doing so, totally on brand for a hard sci-fi author.

> all the more credible for doing so

Agreed. It just means he is thorough and critical of self.-

An excellent, truly modern book!!

(Found the author when "throwing about" some hefty ontological concepts around here - "reality", transcendence, math, physics ...

... and will definitely read).-

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