Diaspora (1997)

by Greg Egan

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English (16) Tagalog (1) Hungarian (1) All languages (18)

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This book was a little more difficult to read than your average Sci Fi book but it was well worth it. It is filled with interesting theories about physics and also computer software lingo. I enjoyed reading it. It makes you think. It also is the first fiction book I have seen with a section of listed references as to where he got the physics etc. from. (

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mel_m | Apr 2, 2013 |

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1507090.html

A book about a posthuman society - most people exist as virtual entities in the datanet of vast supercomputers - dealing with astrophysical disaster striking the earth and then trying to explore parallel universes. Lots of mathematical theory, but rather short on interesting characters or plot resolution; perhaps a bit like Stapledon without his trademark breathlessness. Glad to have finally ticked this off my list. (

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nwhyte | Aug 20, 2010 |

A castastrophic astronomical event means living on Earth is a no go. As in a black hole zapped my planet.

Thus created is the Diaspora, and humanity separates into people that live in different modes. In virtualities, as robots, or points on between.

The main thrust here is these extreme posthumans trying to work out what is still important. For example, do we make children - how do we make them, what do we make them? Things like that.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/04/diaspora-greg-egan.html (

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makenew2 | Aug 18, 2009 |

ZB13

mcolpitts | Aug 15, 2009 |

As for most of Egan' books I have read this is a tour de force elaboration on post singularity quantum computing and AI. (

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BillHall | Feb 3, 2009 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Greg Egan	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Gudynas, Peter	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Diáspora

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1997

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Ignotus Award (Foreign novel, 2010)

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Yatima surveyed the Doppler-shifted stars around the polis, following the frozen, concentric waves of colour across the sky from expansion to convergence.

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ハヤカワ文庫 SF (1531)

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Diaspora (novel)

File:Diaspora(GollanczPB).jpg

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Greg Egan

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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0061057983, Mass Market Paperback)

In the 30th century, few humans remain on Earth. Most have downloaded themselves into robot bodies or solar-system-spanning virtual realities, escaping death--or so they believe, until the collision of nearby neutron stars threatens life in every form.

Diaspora, written by Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner Greg Egan, transcends millennia and universes in the tradition of Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus, Camille Flammarion's Omega, and Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men. Diaspora is packed with mind-bending ideas extrapolated from cutting-edge cosmology, physics, and consciousness theory to create an astonishing hard-SF novel inhabited by very strange yet always believable characters. Diaspora is why people read SF. --Cynthia Ward

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:25:08 -0400)

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Behold the Orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knotting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software. Others opted for gleisners: disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the Solar System forever in fusion drive starships. And there are the holdouts. The fleshers left behind in the muck and jungle of Earth - some devolved into dream-apes; others cavorting in the seas or the air; while the statics and bridgers try to shape out a roughly human destiny.But the complacency of the citizens is shattered when an unforeseen disaster ravages the fleshers, and reveals the possibility that the polises themselves might be at risk from bizarre astrophysical processes that seem to violate fundamental laws of nature. The Orphan joins a group of citizens and flesher refugees in a search for the knowledge that will guarantee their safety...… (more)