The Clockwork Rocket follows the life of Yalde as she fights against the odds to become a scientist and then discovers an approaching cosmic natural disaster that will destroy all life on her planet and along with her student comes up with an extraordinary plan to save the world. Note that Yalde’s species is in no way similar to humans; they are more akin to a multicellular amoeba.
The most extraordinary aspect of this novel, though, is not their rescue plan but the world itself or, rather, the universe. Egan has created a hypothetical universe with different laws of physics; most significantly that the speed of light is not a constant and its creation generates energy rather than consuming it. In Egan’s own words:
“Does every last phenomenon described in the novel follow with perfect mathematical rigour from this process? Of course not! Centuries of effort by people far more able than I am has still not put the physics of our own universe on such a rigorous footing, and to reconstruct everything under different axioms – with no access to experimental results – would be a massive undertaking. So, while I’ve tried to be guided throughout the novel by some well-established general principles, at times the finer details are simply guesswork.”
Now I love hard SF and it doesn’t come much harder than Clockwork Rocket but, sadly for me, this goes just a little too far for my limited credentials. Possibly, had I read this shortly after leaving university, I would have understood and loved the physics. However, my physics studies at university are a long, long way in the past and I just couldn’t keep up with the maths and physics, and there is a lot of it (complete with lots of diagrams that don’t come out so well in my eReader!). Normally when reading hard SF I like to try and make sense of the science but here I just got badly lost and in the end I had to take it at face value and trust that Egan has, as is likely, done a thorough job of constructing his fictional universe. But so much of the book focuses on the physics that if you skim that there’s not really enough left to keep me engrossed. The characters and story are interesting enough but, in the end, I feel Egan’s writing generally excels in the world building far more than in the plots and characters and this book is no exception. Had I been able to wrap my head around his hypothetical science I’m sure I’d have loved this book but as it stands I just couldn’t and doubt I’ll be reading the two sequels.
If you’re good at maths and physics I think I’d recommend this highly if not I wouldn’t bother. Either way expect this to be a demanding read.
3/5 stars
The most extraordinary aspect of this novel, though, is not their rescue plan but the world itself or, rather, the universe. Egan has created a hypothetical universe with different laws of physics; most significantly that the speed of light is not a constant and its creation generates energy rather than consuming it. In Egan’s own words:
“Does every last phenomenon described in the novel follow with perfect mathematical rigour from this process? Of course not! Centuries of effort by people far more able than I am has still not put the physics of our own universe on such a rigorous footing, and to reconstruct everything under different axioms – with no access to experimental results – would be a massive undertaking. So, while I’ve tried to be guided throughout the novel by some well-established general principles, at times the finer details are simply guesswork.”
Now I love hard SF and it doesn’t come much harder than Clockwork Rocket but, sadly for me, this goes just a little too far for my limited credentials. Possibly, had I read this shortly after leaving university, I would have understood and loved the physics. However, my physics studies at university are a long, long way in the past and I just couldn’t keep up with the maths and physics, and there is a lot of it (complete with lots of diagrams that don’t come out so well in my eReader!). Normally when reading hard SF I like to try and make sense of the science but here I just got badly lost and in the end I had to take it at face value and trust that Egan has, as is likely, done a thorough job of constructing his fictional universe. But so much of the book focuses on the physics that if you skim that there’s not really enough left to keep me engrossed. The characters and story are interesting enough but, in the end, I feel Egan’s writing generally excels in the world building far more than in the plots and characters and this book is no exception. Had I been able to wrap my head around his hypothetical science I’m sure I’d have loved this book but as it stands I just couldn’t and doubt I’ll be reading the two sequels.
If you’re good at maths and physics I think I’d recommend this highly if not I wouldn’t bother. Either way expect this to be a demanding read.
3/5 stars
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